Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

In the 1978/79 season Western Australia surrendered the Sheffield Shield to Victoria. But for Ric Charlesworth personally the season was a good one. For the only time since he’d made his mark in both sports cricket momentarily took precedence over hockey. While the Australian hockey team was winning the silver medal in the inaugural Champions Trophy behind Pakistan in Karachi in November, Ric was playing in the Sheffield Shield, at the start of a season in which his batting was largely successful and he had the honour of captaincy in its later stages. In the first Shield match, a draw against New South Wales at the SCG, Ric made little contribution to a first (and only) innings total of eight for 476 declared. The fact that he was run out, despite his speed between the wickets, for neither the first nor last time in his career, needs to be set in context: he opened with Graeme Wood – already famous as one of the game’s most frightening partners – who did, however, make 86 himself, before John Inverarity scored a career-best 187. In a drawn match against Queensland it was Wood’s turn for a duck, caught, not run out, shortly before Ric removed himself for seven, hit wicket – a dismissal Wood replicated in his second innings 22, while Ric made 36. Kim Hughes meanwhile reinforced his Test position with 127. In another draw, against Victoria at the WACA, Charlesworth (52) and Wood (79) prospered together in the first innings and were both out caught in the second for 37 and 22. In early December Wood was playing in the First Test, along with Yardley and Hughes, whose second innings 129 failed to avert a seven-wicket defeat by England. So, during the simultaneous return match against New South Wales – another draw – Charlesworth’s opening partner was Geoff Marsh, who scored 57 and nought, while Ric made eleven twice. In Western Australia’s match against the England XI (no longer MCC in non-Test touring games) team totals of 78 and 52 tempered initial jubilation when the tourists were dismissed for 144 in the first innings of the match. Ian Botham’s four for sixteen and Mike Hendrick’s five for eleven underlined how far the state’s standards had slumped without the Packer players. Ric’s innings of three and six were not significantly worse than the scores of Hughes, Wood and Marsh, while he had distinguished himself in the field with a marvellous, over-the-shoulder running catch to dismiss Ian Botham. After the game Botham told Allan Edwards it was the most brilliant catch ever to dismiss him. And while England were inflicting a 166-run 1976-1981 39