Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

most post-war Australian politicians, a pragmatic licker of American footwear. Probably not all Charlesworth’s first-class team-mates shared his delight at a Labor victory but, as mainly young men, they were unlikely to be sorry that, immediately the ALP was elected. ‘conscription was halted and the troops came home from a futile and ill-conceived involvement’. Whatever their views on the great issues of the day, Ric was comfortable as a newcomer in a team that included Rod Marsh, whom he’d known since he was sixteen at West Perth; Ross Edwards, ten years his elder, but a hockey team-mate; and John Inverarity, through both hockey and university cricket. At this stage the 20-year-old Charlesworth, more than once criticised by his father for over-confidence, even arrogance, as a schoolboy, was socially more sure of himself than some older team-mates. He recalls that both Dennis Lillee and Bob Massie were initially shy, retiring bank clerks. Massie would remain a quiet personality, and a curiously under-achieving one, both before and after his phenomenal sixteen wickets in the Lord’s Test in 1972, never taking five wickets in an innings for Western Australia. Lillee, who had made a great impact with his bowling against the Rest of the World team in 1971, had reinforced his reputation on the 1972 tour but, said Ric, ‘Dennis the larrikin’ was only just emerging when they became room-mates in the eastern states in November and December that year. 1970-1976 27 Cricket experience. John Inverarity, Graham McKenzie and Dennis Lillee, Western Australian team-mates, played a total of 136 Tests and 804 first-class games between them.