Extract from
BORN TO BOWL - The Life and Times of Don Shepherd
BEATING
THE AUSSIES
To
many the 1948 Australians, under the captaincy of Don Bradman, were the finest
touring team ever to visit the British Isles. This was not just because they
dominated the Test matches but because they steam-rollered county opposition
from May till September, returning undefeated with 23 wins, 15 of them by an
innings, in their 31 matches. In so doing, they maintained a record of being
undefeated by a county that stretched back to 1912. In those days the visit of
the touring team was the highlight of a county’s summer, not a chance to rest
key players, and the tourists’ pride of performance, in turn, never flagged.
In
1953 Lindsay Hassett’s side extended this remarkable record for a seventh
successive tour, their only defeat coming in the final Test match. Ian
Johnson’s 1956 team lost to Surrey, with Jim Laker taking all ten wickets in
the first innings, but in 1961 Richie Benaud made it eight tours in nine when
the Australians had not lost to a county. When Bobby Simpson’s side arrived in
the summer of 1964, only one county - the mighty Surrey side of the ’50s - had
beaten an Australian touring team since 1912.
The
Australians’ visit to Cardiff at Whitsuntide that year resulted in a
high-scoring draw, and they returned to Wales for the August Bank Holiday
fixture at Swansea unbeaten in any match on the tour and one-nil up in the Test
series. By contrast, Glamorgan had had a poor summer, with only three victories
in 20 Championship matches. Don remembers his captain’s rallying cry to his
troops: “Ossie said, ‘Look we can make up a lot of ground and save the
season if we do well against Australia.’”
Don
never needed to be pumped up for these matches with the tourists. “There was
always a sense of excitement about a tourist match, especially at Swansea, where
we used to get huge crowds. I can remember 32,000 in there on an August Bank
Holiday Monday against one of the Australian touring sides. I always felt that
there was something special about the tourist matches. People had come to enjoy
them, and there was applause for a good stop in the field or a good throw, not
just clapping for a hundred or five wickets. It’s nice to know that your
efforts are appreciated all the way along the line, and in the matches against
the tourists everything seemed a bit extra special to the crowd.”
The
St Helen’s pitch was one that Glamorgan knew how to exploit. Their batsmen had
learnt how to play on the low, slow-turning pitches that characterised St
Helen’s, and Don’s own bowling was always at its most dangerous on his home
ground, especially against batsmen who hadn’t mastered the technique of
playing well forward with soft hands.
Don
remembers how the whole team approached the match with confidence. “We went
into it feeling that, if there was the right sort of help in the pitch and we
batted well, then we had a chance against anybody. Although we weren’t
international bowlers, Jimmy Pres and myself, we knew that, given the right
conditions, and with our fantastic back-up with fielders, we could put up a good
show. We didn’t fear anybody.”
Batting
first after winning the toss, Glamorgan struggled to 156 for eight and had Don
to thank for reaching 197 as he hit 24 from nine deliveries. The Australians had
the upper hand, but they were in for a shock. There was an hour and forty
minutes to bat that evening, and the openers played out nine overs of Wheatley
and Cordle with little difficulty. Then came the spinners, Don and Jim Pressdee,
and 15 for one was suddenly 21 for five. Lawry, Redpath, O’Neill, Simpson, the
cream of Australia’s batting was making the long climb back up to the high
pavilion as the score slumped further, to 39 for six, with Jim Pressdee taking
four wickets and Don two.
As
the drama was unfolding at St Helen’s, it was not only spectators at the
ground who were cheering the Welshmen on. Less than a mile away a rival
attraction was in full swing. The annual Eisteddford had come to Swansea for the
first time for many years, and those who had gathered for the great Welsh event
found themselves sucked into their nation’s sporting battle. The organisers
had enterprisingly provided a few television sets around the ground, still black
and white in 1964. “Alun Williams of the BBC was there,” Don says, “and he
told us that there were huge crowds thronging round these television sets,
watching the progress of the game. And that was something quite new in those
days.”
There
was still feverish excitement when the cricketers visited the Eisteddford on the
Sunday evening. The Australians were pleased to find their great soprano, Marie
Collier, as the festival’s star international attraction. But pride of place
that evening went to the cricketers who were summoned up onto the stage to find
themselves in front of a male voice choir of some 600 and facing an audience of
close to 10,000. Welsh fervour boiled over as the players were introduced and
there was a special thunderous ovation for the two bowling heroes, who were last
to take their bow. “My knees had gone to jelly,” Don was reported as saying
to one of the newspapers, but now he remembers how the whole occasion buoyed up
their spirits. “After going up on that stage we were still so full of hwyl
that there was no way we were going to lose the match. That’s how we all
felt.”
The
sun broke through on Monday morning, and the game resumed in front of a Bank
Holiday crowd that built up to 20,000 by the afternoon. There was a brief flurry
of hitting from Tom Veivers, whose 51 included six 6s, but within an hour the
tourists were all out for 101. Don had not suffered much during Veivers’
assault and finished with figures of 17 - 12 - 22 - 4, while Jim Pressdee took
six for 58.
With
the pitch still taking spin, Glamorgan built on their lead as Tony Lewis and,
for the second time in the match, Alan Rees made useful runs. A score of 172
meant that the Australians needed 269 to win. They knew that they had a fight on
their hands, but Monday evening brought no repeat of Saturday’s collapse and,
when stumps were drawn, they had taken their score to 75 for one - though the
wicket that had fallen was that of their captain Bobby Simpson, fresh from his
triple century in the previous Test match. Caught Walker, bowled Shepherd, 32.
The
Bank Holiday weekend was over, but still more than 10,000 people made their way
to the St Helen’s Ground on the Tuesday morning, hoping - sensing - that
history would be made. A fine boundary catch by Tony Lewis dismissed Norman
O’Neill off Euros Lewis, leaving two newcomers to British conditions, Ian
Redpath and Jack Potter, to pit their skill against a man who knew the wiles of
the slow, turning Swansea square better than anyone. Although the pitch was now
starting to ease, it was still an unequal struggle. Don snapped them both up,
and Australia were 92 for four.
But
Bill Lawry was still at the wicket and, according to Wisden, ‘Hour
after hour he defied the Glamorgan bowlers in a dour but dedicated innings of
intense concentration. As long as he stayed, his side looked like winning.’ At
the other end Veivers again adopted a more aggressive approach and took the
score to 169 before being bowled by Pressdee. Then Barry Jarman the
wicket-keeper joined Lawry, and the score, still with only five wickets down,
passed 200.
Don,
meanwhile, was giving the batsmen nothing to feed off as he continued for over
after parsimonious over in the heat. This was the Wheatley theory of pressure,
and its dividend came when Lawry’s eyes lit up at the sight of a Pressdee long
hop. The Australian left-hander had been at the crease for nearly five hours for
his 64 runs, and he had received no such delivery from Don. Striking the ball in
the meat of the bat, Lawry drilled it through mid-wicket where Alan Rees took a
stunning waist high catch. It was now 207 for six, and Jarman had only the
bowlers to help him score the remaining 62 runs.
Don
was feeling the effects of cramp in the intense heat, but he had no intention of
giving up the ball, nor did his length and line waver as the two spinners bowled
on unchanged. Martin fell to Don, Veivers to Pressdee, Sellers to Don and –
with 37 runs still wanted – Neil Hawke was caught by Eifion Jones off Pressdee.
The Australians had lost to Glamorgan or, as many newspapers preferred to put
it, they had lost to Wales.
The
players fought their way back to the pavilion through the crowd of
jubilant supporters who had run onto the ground. Don had figures of 52 -
29 - 71 – 5, and he clutched a souvenir stump. Then the singing started,
singing as only the Welsh know how.
Mae
hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi,
Gwlad
beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri.
Eventually
there were speeches and champagne. “This is like winning a Test series,”
said Ossie Wheatley.
Sports
editors had a field day with their headlines. ‘Yes, Ossie’s tamed the
Aussies,’ proclaimed the Daily Express. ‘WALES beat Aussies,’
hurrahed the Daily Mail, going on to describe the clamour for Don from
the excited spectators: ‘The jubilant crowd shouted, “We want Don,” but
Don Shepherd was too tired to start making speeches. … Shepherd said, “I
could hardly put my feet down, but I knew I had to keep going.”’
‘Shepherd
and Pressdee make a dream come true,’ JBG Thomas wrote in the Western Mail,
going on: ‘Ymlaen Morgannwg - this was your finest cricketing hour!’ Even
the Church of Ireland Gazette devoted a leader to the triumph, headed
‘Welsh Rarebit’, in which it shrewdly pointed out that the Australians were
still undefeated in England. They had had to come to Wales to have their colours
lowered!
“We
Australians have very long memories,” their captain Bobby Simpson said, “and
perhaps in 1968, when we do come to Swansea again, we might remember this day
and try to avenge this defeat.”
Six
months later Wales had still not forgotten its day of triumph. In the Western
Mail’s ‘Sportsman of the Year’ Awards, presented by Radio Wales, Don
and Jim Pressdee shared second place in the voting, beaten only by long-jumper
Lynn Davies, winner of a Gold Medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
*
When
the Australians came back to Swansea in 1968 to avenge their defeat, it was
their only visit to Wales that summer. A newspaper report in 1964 had suggested
that Don Shepherd, then almost 37, might have retired from the game by this
time, but they did not know their man. Don was still one of the
most consistent bowlers on the county circuit and now, with Tony Lewis
injured, he was to enjoy the rare honour of captaining his county against the
tourists.
By
now, the Swansea square had begun to lose its reputation for producing
treacherous slow turners and the game was played in conditions that batsmen
might pray for. So, when he won the toss, Don had no qualms about deciding to
bat. There was a fine 99 from Alan Jones, who holed out at deep mid-on, and
Majid played a gem of an innings for 55, but Glamorgan were disappointed to
reach only 224. However, just as four years earlier, there was the drama of
falling wickets on Saturday evening as this time Jarman, Redpath, Cowper and
Sheahan were all back in the high pavilion with only 36 runs on the board. Two
more fell before the close, and the score was still only 80.
Play resumed after lunch on Sunday, and soon the Australians were all out for 110, yielding a first innings lead of 114 to the Welshmen. Don had not been among the wicket-takers, but his 16 overs for only 11 runs had allowed his less experienced bowlers to benefit from the frustration that he had helped to build up. Don, however, stresses that Nash, in particular, bowled magnificently to take five for 28. “That was brilliant bowling. Left-arm over, with sharp in-swing and occasionally moving the ball across the right-hander towards the slips.”
As in 1964, once the bowlers had done their work, the challenge to Glamorgan was to build on their lead, and Don encouraged the batsmen to go for quick runs in the knowledge that the surface was still offering little help to the bowlers. The West Indian Bryan Davis, still qualifying to play in championship cricket, batted splendidly for 66, Roger Davis also passed fifty and the acting captain weighed in with two sixes before declaring at 250 for nine. He had left the tourists a full day in which to score 365 for victory.
It was now that Don’s captaincy was put to the test as over 10,000 spectators again thronged the ground in hopeful anticipation. In 1964 it had been important to deny the Australians runs, but now Don was keen that they should not decide to put up the shutters. “They had a sniff of it all the time,” he says, and to keep them in the hunt he made greater use of Brian Lewis’s sharply spun off-breaks than of his own bowling, allowing the young spinner the roughed-up end and giving him an unbroken spell of 32 overs. “That was typical of Shep,” says Peter Walker. “Most great bowlers are selfish like batsmen, they are preoccupied with their own performance, but he was very keen to give the young Brian Lewis first call on the pitch, even if it cost us the match.”
Don
sees his tactic differently. “I was very cagey about bowling too tightly for
too long. 365 was a good target. And if they got it, they deserved to win.”
Bob Cowper and Paul Sheahan took the score to 116 for two, but then Brian Lewis made the breakthrough, dismissing Cowper and Les Joslin in ten balls. Sheahan was still there, though, and, according to Wisden, ‘his magnificent century dominated the day’s cricket.’ Victory was still pursued.
But
Glamorgan were at their most tigerish in the field. Barry Jarman fell to a
breathtaking catch by Roger Davis, giving Don his first wicket, but the catch
that turned the course of the match came from Peter Walker. “I bowled a bad
ball to Sheahan,” he says, “and he whacked it back right off the middle and
I caught it. A pretty handy catch! But it was a disgraceful ball to get a bloke
out for 137. And that opened both ends.”
A
flurry of sixes enlivened the final stages, but at four o’clock the last
wicket fell and it was time once more for the Welsh voices to greet their heroes
as they had four years earlier, this time adding ‘Calon Lan’ and ‘Waltzing
Matilda’ to the Welsh National Anthem.
Another
stump was snatched for Don’s collection, his memento of a 79-run victory. As
gracious speeches were made from the pavilion balcony, Barry Jarman, who had
captained the Australians in the match, won the hearts of the crowd with his
timely concession: “So we’ve been beaten by Glamorgan! What’s new?” As
the celebration party began in earnest, it was suddenly realised that one small
item had been overlooked. No one had tempted fate by ordering the champagne.
Don
looks back on one of the greatest days of his cricketing life. “It was very
special as I was in charge, and we got this wonderful response from the team
again. And again there was the response from the crowd. It was like an
amphitheatre in a way. There used to be a huge bank, and all the way round
wherever you looked there were temporary stands, and the whole space was
surrounded and packed. It was really wonderful to be able to say for the second
time that we’d beaten Australia.”