Famous Cricketers No 96 - Clarrie Grimmett

Grimmett, which perhaps prevented him gaining a place on the 1938 tour. It could well be argued that at forty-six, it was time for Grimmett to give way but many never accepted that he was wrong. There was certainly a group of players, all of Irish origin. all Roman Catholic, such as Grimmett, McCabe, Fingleton, O’Reilly and McCormick, who felt they were discriminated against by Bradman. Even so Bradman was never prepared to accept that his choice of Ward was incorrect. Grimmett played for three more years before first-class matches ceased in Australia for the duration. He was injured for practically the first time in early 1939, actually being forced to miss a game but still managed to head the bowling averages in that year. He had a wonderful 1939/40 season, in what was to be his final Sheffield Shield season, capturing 73 wickets at 22.66, easily his best of the season. He took five or more wickets on nine occasions, fittingly claiming 11-229 in his final game to finish with a grand total of 513 wickets in all Sheffield Shield games. He played in five more games in 1940/41, taking 7-114 against Victoria, his one hundred and twenty-seventh and final five wickets haul. He finished with a final total of 1,424 wickets at 22.28 in all games, 668 for South Australia and 905 in all matches in Australia. Grimmett continued to play district cricket in Australia until 1945, having been a State cricket coach from 1939 to 1946 and a State selector from 1940 to 1942/42. He also remained very much a bowler of distinction, playing well into his fifties as well as continuing to coach. In his final season against Kensington, he captured 64 wickets at 11.21 apiece, having the previous season claimed figures of 9-55 out of a total of 75 wickets at 9.49. Grimmett lived another 35 years after the war, dying peacefully on 2nd May 1980 at Kensington Park. His wife Lizzy had died almost 12 years earlier in 1968, Grimmett eventually marrying again in 1971 and moved to a new house when almost eighty. After 1945 he continued to write and coach, as well as attending numerous functions at the SACA. He possessed a variety of well-known nicknames, ‘Grum’, ‘Scarlet’, ‘Gnome’ and the ‘Fox’. He was always involved in sport playing, from winning a one hundred-yards championship in 1908, through table tennis, often using the ball as a method of spinning the ball and guessing where it fell, tennis and in 1939 claiming a hole-in-one at golf which he played until he was eighty. He never gave up hope of dismissing players and never lost the confidence in his ability to dismiss any batsman in the world. His old friend, Jack Saunders, was right when he said “Your next ball will surely get a wicket”. 7