Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

In 2001 Charlesworth was openly critical of Hughes in his book The Coach: Managing for Success. In a chapter entitled ‘Flair – An Overrated Commodity’ he wrote: Kim Hughes, whom I saw at close range from the time he was sixteen, was always easily distracted. His fame and brilliance, friction with World Series Cricket and his stint of captaincy were all factors that easily distracted him. He never had the cold stare and composure of Greg Chappell, he was too easily diverted from his task. 21 Yet, interviewed in 2009, Charlesworth’s confirmation of Hughes’ hostile relationship with Lillee and Marsh amounted to a criticism of all three players. The problem wasn’t simply a result of the WSC schism, nor of the still-unresolved controversy over whether Hughes spurned a chance to sign with the Packer organisation. ‘There were a lot of things there even before that,’ he insisted. He regarded Hughes as ‘the most gifted player I saw in that era’, along with Viv Richards, acknowledging that Greg Chappell was ‘a good but different sort of player’. But Hughes under-achieved. They [Lillee and Marsh] were frustrated with him when he was in the team … Kim Hughes didn’t have a temperament that matched his gifts … my view was that even before WSC came along they didn’t rate him as high as some of us did. I always thought he would mature into the player he could be … Maybe one of the reasons he didn’t was that he became captain of Australia with all the distractions that involves. Ric had great admiration for the hard work that made Lillee ‘the best bowler I have seen in contemporary cricket’: Naturally gifted as all champions must be, Lillee’s consistency as a wicket taker was underpinned by a work ethic at training and a practised technique which in his time set him apart from other fast bowlers. He worked much harder than anyone else. He admired Marsh for similar reasons: ‘I knew Rod Marsh since he was sixteen. He was the fat kid, who had shown great discipline to get himself into shape’. By contrast, Hughes was ‘a great talent that didn’t blossom.’ When Hughes’ frustrations grew in the years ahead, with the Test captaincy alternating between him and Chappell, according to the 1976-1981 43 21 The Coach , p 105.