'Feet are the most important thing in batsmanship'
Arthur Morris, Australia's oldest living Test cricketer, talks about batting, coaching, self-doubt, the Don, and being mates with Lindsay Hassett
It did occur in business when a fellow came up and didn't know all that much about cricket, but he did know about Bradman's duck. In the conversation something reminded him of that and he said, Bradman got a duck. I said yes, I was there. He said, "Were you? What were you doing over there? Were you on business?" I said, "No, I was up the other end." He said, "Did you get any runs?" I said, "196". Then I stopped a little moment to get the message across. "Run out," I said. "Nobody got me out. I ran myself out."
I think it was a very good side. The English side was also a very good one - Hutton and Compton and Bedser - but we were very strong. It was just after the war and we had all the players to click. Neil Harvey was the only one who hadn't been in the services. The others had played the Englishmen in 1946-47 and India in 1947-48 before we went to England.
It was very important that we did play. This was before colour television. Unfortunately a lot of young players today think the game only started when colour television came in. It was very important to the counties that we played three days. We were there for six months and played each county, one or two of them twice. That was a source of money for them. I felt very sorry for Don, because every county wanted him to play, because it meant more people. It wasn't easy. Hotels were pretty average, but we battled on. It was a great tour.
No. Where do they get all these fantasies? Really, I am amazed sometimes when I read of these things. We'd go to play to win. The silly part about this is that sometimes I wish he had been more ruthless and not played extra counties. They wanted him and he didn't want to. Once or twice we played on the third day to keep the game going to get the crowds there, and I'd rather have been back in London than be stuck out in Leeds or whatever.
I think there was a bit of that in one or two games. I think there was the memory of his 1938 tour when they got about 11 hundreds, and he broke his ankle bowling. I think that was a little on his mind.
Yes, I enjoyed batting over there. I think the more you play, the better you get.
I think you're right. Well, that happened in those days. Today they can fly everywhere. You get so many more Test matches in small amounts of time. On the tour, Don and I got hundreds in the first match, in Worcester. In fact, I got a century in my first match in South Africa, West Indies and England.
I know Don wrote in his diary that he thought we'd be beaten. I was bloody sure we'd be beaten. Lindsay opened, because Sid Barnes had been hurt in the match before. He got out early and then we battled away. I was a bit lucky with a stumping - the ball jumped and hit Godfrey Evans on the chest and bounced back. That showed you what the wicket was like. It turned a lot, but it turned slowly. We were able to penetrate the field because Yardley, their captain - and everybody else - was thinking they would win this match, so he kept the field up.
Yes, Don was having trouble picking his wrong'un a couple of times. He did come to me at one stage after lunch and said his back wasn't going too well. When Compton - who was a good bowler but not a regular bowler - and playing him defensively made him a better bowler - came on, I decided to go after him. It didn't matter where he pitched them, I hit him. He wasn't able to bowl a good length at me, because I was covering him, back and forward. I was very disappointed at [Jack] Fingleton writing that Bradman was very unlucky to have Compton bowl four poor overs, because I made them poor. Anyway, that put us on the road to the fact that we'd gain a draw, at least. But from then on we just kept the pressure on and saw that we were going to win it.
"I would hate it if Cricket Australia or Cricket New South Wales could ring me up because I am employed by the cricket authorities and say, 'You will be here at 3'o'clock or such and such a thing'"
No, never. In fact he said to me one day - and this is why I get cranky about coaches - "I don't know how you do it, but keep doing it." It means I played so differently from the way he played. In our day you had players of different physiques and they played differently. There were no coaches to tell them to perhaps end up looking like a lot of sausages coming out of a machine, all doing the same thing.
Very little. If they asked a question, then that's all. When you get into bad habits you can ask another player, what am I doing wrong here? But you don't need a coach to tell you that you must put your foot there or do that. I think Ian Chappell was right when he said he used coaches to get to the ground.
I think so. I've been seeing it, particularly in opening batsmanship. It is a very good defensive but it doesn't win games. McCabe never played forward in his life and he was the fastest batsman I saw. People tend to say, "Oh, he's on the back foot", but I found most of the players on the back foot are very fast scorers.
He was a most charming man. A different person when on the field to when he was off the field. It's often been said that Bill O'Reilly and Bradman were two different types of people, but they had immense admiration for each other on the cricket field and they were great for Australia. You can have a team of different people, which you do have, but when you're playing for your country or your team, you do the best you can, but you don't have to love them.
Very important, I think. We didn't have to hug each other, which is good because we didn't have all these deodorants you have these days. If I had put my arm around Bill O'Reilly I wouldn't be here talking to you today. I'd have been dead many years ago.
No, we had enough to get by for drinks and so on. It was like having expenses really, and virtually like playing as an amateur. I wouldn't like it today, frankly. I wouldn't like it instead of having a job out in the business world. I would hate it if Cricket Australia or Cricket New South Wales could ring me up because I am employed by the cricket authorities and say, "You will be here at 3'o'clock or such and such a thing". I am pleased that I played at a time when I wasn't under that pressure to come and practice at a particular time.
I did often. Not late nights, but a few beers to get to sleep, because if you've got any imagination and you're thinking about going out the next day opening for Australia, it tends to get in your mind.
I don't know. It must have had some influence on me. Made me very shy, I think. It took a while for me to overcome that. My father was keen on sport and I played good football, rugby union for St George and in the army and Combined services. Johnny Wallace, a top centre in the 1930s, said I was the best five-eighth in Australia. I accepted that and enjoyed it.
Hard to tell. I think break-ups are very upsetting to a child, and I was an only child. My mother was English. I think she took one look at Dungog when the old man was sent there and went back to Bondi. I loved Dungog - you could play all day long, cricket, football, tennis. It was upsetting of course, but he accepted it. He was among children all day long and his influence was tremendous. He was a schoolteacher, a bit pedantic, not the sort you get terribly close to, but he looked after me tremendously well.
My father said, "My son will play for Australia." The captain, who was 17, said, "Mr Morris, if your son plays for Australia, you can kiss my arse." And the old man never came up to watch me play after that.
"We didn't have to hug each other, which is good because we didn't have all these deodorants you have these days. If I had put my arm around Bill O'Reilly I wouldn't be here talking to you today. I'd have been dead many years ago"
Oh, great. I fielded at slips to him. He had just come back from South Africa and he came on to bowl. I had never seen anything like it: fast spin, he cut his legspinner, but his wrong'un was superb and it bounced. It was a good side we played against. I think he got 6 for 28 or something. I took a couple of catches. Shane Warne is a great legspinner but if you look at Tiger's wickets to number of runs, it will be half of Warne's. I've never seen a better bowler. But I think Shane's the best orthodox legspinner I have seen.
I was batting in the middle order. I had had my first grade match at the age of 15. I bowled offspin and batted last. Alec Marks got about 187 and took me for a lot but kindly gave me his wicket. I got 20-odd runs batting last, and he said to me, "Son, you are going to be a good batsman, give the bowling away." I was bowling quite often until Tiger really took over. We had a very good bowling side.
I got a hundred in the first innings but I didn't bat well.
I batted much better in the second innings. I really felt that I wanted to prove my point. Queensland had a very good bowler called [John] Ellis, and I made about three or four attempts to hook him. But it might have been good, because they flew away to the off side for four fours, and I don't know what it looked like from the outside. They might have said, "What a good square-cutter this boy is." But then I concentrated in the second innings. So that's why I got two hundreds - I wanted to prove I was better than I was in the first innings.
Oh yes. We were too poor, those days. My father was a school teacher and didn't have money. A prominent Australian, Doc Evatt [leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1951 to 1960], very kindly bought me a bat after the match. I still have the letter. He wrote, "You go down to McCabe's and choose yourself a bat." That's the only bat I owned then, apart from having kids' bats. He was a cricket enthusiast. Robert Menzies too.
Oh sure. There were times when it looked like the war would go one forever. I was playing a lot of football at the time, against top-line rugby union, rugby league players. Then I was sent to Finch Haven, where the Americans were, so there was no cricket. We played softball with the Americans - underarm stuff. In fact I ran into Ray Lindwall, who was on his way to one of the other islands. He took a marvelous catch in the deep. The Americans we were playing with were ecstatic.
I had a little doubt there. I was always out to prove myself, I suppose. A little bit of self-doubt helps. It really makes you concentrate. If you think you're the best and you go out there and start throwing your bat at everything then you're back in the pavilion very early. I was nervous when opening. Most of us are. I asked Bob Menzies and Neville Wran, "Do you get nervous when you speak?" Both of them said yes.
Wonderful character. I was vice-captain to him for 25 matches. I got along very well with him. He was a very nice, delightful young man.
Oh yes, I am furious about it. I had retired after my first wife died, and I hadn't played cricket for a while. The English boys came out [in 1958-59] and they played the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra. Hassett was also chosen. I had bought a bat, a beautiful bat I had a great loving regard for. As I was going out, Hassett had to go in to bat. He said, "I haven't got a bat." I said, "Well, here's mine." I think he had had a couple of gin and tonics, so I thought there's no way he'd be able to do any damage to this bat. So off he went.