Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

a place in this galaxy by winning UWA’s Sports Star of the Year award in successive years, 1972 and 1973. 12 He joined a University cricket club that had enjoyed its best seasons after the Second World War, winning the first-grade premiership for the first time, and eventually twice more, in the early 1950s, when its players included John Rutherford, Western Australia’s first Test player, and Lawrie Sawle, later chairman of the Australian selectors, who presided over the revival of Australian Test cricket from 1989 through the 1990s. A better player than either of them, swing bowler Ray Strauss took 128 wickets at an average of 23.71 in 34 matches for Western Australia and was considered unlucky not to have played for Australia. The 1960s brought even greater success for University with four premierships won by teams that included state all-rounder – and Australian overseas tour representative – Jock Irvine and future Test players John Inverarity, Rodney Marsh and Tony Mann, all of whom were taking arts and education degrees. After playing in the 1963/64 University premiership team, Inverarity led it to success in 1965/66 and 1967/68, becoming state captain in 1969 and Australian vice-captain on the 1972 tour to England. Inverarity returned to captain University in the 1971/72 season, Ric’s first for the club, and continued to lead it until the end of the premiership-winning 1974/75 season. Among Ric’s fellow players at University were men who would forge reputations outside cricket: from the state 1969 under-19 team, footballer and eventual AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, a swing bowler; and Rod Eddington, who was knighted for services to aviation in 2005 – in Britain, long after such titles were discarded in Australia – following a distinguished career, eventually as chief executive officer of British Airways plc. He had been only a fringe player for University, mainly playing second grade, but, as Western Australia’s Rhodes scholar for 1974, went on to play eight first-class matches for Oxford University, albeit with no great success. Far more important for Ric’s cricket development were Inverarity – his University and soon his state 22 1970-1976 12 These and other details about cricket, cricketers and other athletes at the University of Western Australia are taken from the author’s completed chapter on sport for the centenary history of the University to be published in 2011. Oddly, the University’s own records err in listing him as the only person to win the award in two different sports, hockey in 1972 and cricket 1973: UWA Sports Foundation, Become a Part of Our Team , Crawley, 2004, p 8. Ric himself points out that both were for cricket, as he didn’t play hockey for University until one season in 1980.