Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

He managed to pass his exams but ended the season without proving himself as a cricketer. As Western Australia retained the Sheffield Shield they’d won the previous season, Ric’s contribution in three home victories was 42 and 14 against Victoria; 21 and 12 not out against Queensland; and fifteen against South Australia. ‘My first season was pretty disastrous,’ he said in 2009. ‘I’d made a couple of scores but then struggled through.’ He might have added that he’d never had a settled place in the batting order. He’d opened twice, batted once at number four, twice at five, twice at six, twice at seven and once at eight. Moving more regularly to the opening position did not, however, bring significant improvement the following season, where he played only the pre-Christmas matches in 1973. In fact his best performances came at number five in the first match, a ten-wicket loss to New South Wales at the Sydney Cricket Ground [SCG]. His 83 not out in the first innings and 65 in the second revealed his essential qualities of sound defence and intense concentration, but also exposed him to the sledging of Doug Walters, who moved very close to the bat, telling the bowlers ‘it doesn’t matter where you bowl, I’m safe!’ The experience also made it clear to Ric that parochialism wasn’t confined to Western Australia. Opposing batsman Ian Davis – who was seen as ‘an outstanding prospect and I was the master of the nick and nudge’ – made 78 in three hours 38 minutes. Promotion to the top of the order in Melbourne was not a success. He opened the batting with former Victorian Graeme Watson, whose wife was Ric’s pathology lecturer, which doubtless had nothing to do with Charlesworth scores of nought and 21. Defeat by eventual Shield winners Victoria was prelude to one at home to South Australia in January 1974. But Ric’s innings of 47 and 58, both as an opener, took him to a season’s aggregate of 274 runs from his six innings and an average of 54.80 that gave him second place in his team’s averages behind Wally Edwards, whose average of 83 came from just three innings. Ric’s season was curtailed because hockey commitments took him to the eastern states to play against Pakistan and Holland and then to New Zealand for a tournament in Christchurch prior to the Commonwealth Games. Ric’s figures were useful indicators for the selectors to bear in mind through the following 1974/75 season, when he was in the Sheffield Shield squad but played no matches for a team that 1970-1976 29