Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

the Civilian Maimed and Limbless Association, who fashioned a prototype still to be seen in a glass case at the WACA’s museum. By December 1975 the start of a prolific grade cricket season – ending with him in first place in the averages with 59.50 – won him selection in the state team to play the touring West Indians. Batting number three behind Test players Laird and Wally Edwards, his scores of twelve and 37 were modest contributions to a Western Australian victory by 115 runs. But they were sufficient to secure his selection for the rest of the Sheffield Shield season. Scores of five and 45 were no worse than those of most of his team-mates in a home eight-wicket defeat in January by South Australia, led by Ian Chappell, who scored 117 and 67 not out. When this result was reversed in Adelaide in mid-February Ric’s 38 was the second- highest first-innings score in either team, behind Kim Hughes’ 45. In a rain-ruined match, reduced to just one innings per side, against New South Wales there was no time for any sledging: Ric, now opening the batting, was lbw to Len Pascoe for one and then had to watch Walters, his tormenter three years before, score a century. A week later, Ric’s 61 was second only to Laird’s 119 in a Western Australian first-innings total of 320 before the weather intervened to wash out the match, with Queensland two for 91. Fifteen for Charlesworth in a defeat of Victoria at the MCG ended a season in which South Australia temporarily interrupted Western Australian domination of the Shield. Despite some solid performances in the latter half of the season, his 214 runs at average of 23.77 had scarcely advanced his reputation as a sound defensive batsman. But with stronger performances at grade level following at the start of the next season, his cricket was one factor 1970-1976 31 Prototype of Ric’s ‘Under the Cap’ helmet, devised in 1975.