Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

presence, even though he now spent most of his time bowling off-spin. But soon Ric had to open the batting at the WACA ground in a semi-final of a one-day competition against Dennis Lillee, ‘who was just a tearaway in those days’. At this time, before two major ground reconstructions, there were two wicket areas. The grade match was played on the WACA West wicket which was ‘much livelier’ than WACA East, the centre wicket soon to be regarded as the fastest in the world when Test cricket came to Perth in 1970. As Ric left the dressing-room ‘everybody was talking about how fast he was, he was just so quick!’ and ‘Rod Marsh just said “Good luck!”’ His torrid introduction to first-grade may have been something of a reality check for the successful school and under-16 West Perth batsman but his selection as captain of the state under-19 team at the age of 17 showed the WACA authorities already believed he had potential as a leader as well as a batsman. The West Australian team for Australia’s first ever under-19 carnival in Melbourne in January 1969 included the already dashing fifteen-year-old Kim Hughes – a future Australian captain – and Mike Fitzpatrick, soon a Rhodes scholar and Australian Rules footballer in Perth and Melbourne, who captained Carlton to consecutive VFL premierships in 1981 and 1982 before embarking on a high profile career in merchant banking and business and eventually becoming chairman of the AFL in 2007. Perhaps because he was later to play – and practise in the nets – so often with Lillee, Ric’s outstanding memory of intimidating fast bowling in his early grade career relates to the ‘memorable WACA final’ at the end of the 1969/70 season. Opponents Midland-Guildford included Tony Mann, whose four Tests would come against India in the first year of World Series Cricket, 1977/78; Bruce Yardley, who went on from one appearance in that same series to complete 33 Tests; and Kevin Gartrell, who had played ten times for the state between 1959 and 1962. But for an opening batsman the biggest threat came from Stan ‘Steamer’ Wilson. It was a ‘daunting prospect’ for a teenager still at school to face a man who was to play only six first-class games, after breaking into the team the previous season, but had developed a formidable reputation in grade cricket. Ric’s 36 ‘took me a while’. Watchful defensive batting was a normal feature of WACA finals, played over four days and usually decided on the first innings after the accumulation of massive scores. Unusually, on this 18 1952-1969