Apart from Lillee and Thomson, there was Walker, who made Oz the best cricket team in business during the first half of the 1970s
Australia fast bowler Max Walker during the 1977 Ashes series. Pic/Getty Images
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Max Walker, who died of skin cancer at 68 yesterday, was more than just a good Test fast-medium bowler for Australia. He was a well-meaning extrovert, who spent most of his post-playing life spreading the gospel of cricket in a light-hearted, different way through commentary and after-dinner anecdotal speeches in which he tended towards hyperbole.
We in India will remember him most for his cricket, although he never played against our teams in Test matches. Some avid cricket followers will remember Sunil Gavaskar mentioning Walker in a column while analysing the controversial India vs Australia Sydney Test of 2008 when he watched Adam Gilchrist (known for walking off in the 2003 World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka) appealing against an Indian batsman in Sydney, knowing full well he had not edged one. “It is well known in the cricketing world that the only walker in Australia is Max and he is long retired,” wrote Gavaskar.
Walker bagged 138 wickets in 34 Tests for Australia from 1972 to 1977 after which he joined Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. He was some sort of a cult figure to Victorians, long before Shane Warne and a little before Merv Hughes, who was gregarious just like him.
Walker came over to Victoria from Hobart. A wrong-footed action earned him the name Tanglefoot which then turned to Tangles and was made popular by his Australia teammates who he first played with in the Melbourne Test against Pakistan in 1972-73. He made his debut in the same Test as Jeff Thomson whose first innings analysis of 0-100 was ‘achieved’ through bowling with a broken foot. Walker claimed five in the Test at Melbourne, which Australia won.
Six for 15 in the second innings to dismiss Pakistan for 106 in Sydney with 159 to get for a victory, made Walker an important member of Ian Chappell’s team. He was invaluable on the 1972-73 tour of the West Indies where Dennis Lillee broke down with a career-threatening back injury.
Chappell wrote in Cricket in My Blood: “Walker was like a machine: Just wind him up and he would bowl for hours and hours.”
The high point of the WI tour was the third Test match at Trinidad. WI were poised to win the Test with only 66 runs away and from their victory target of 334 with six wickets in hand. At lunch time on Day Five, captain Chappell noticed a dispirited bunch, not believing enough that an incredible victory was possible. He decided to give his team a short lecture whose contents brother Greg revealed in his 1985 biography written by Adrian McGregor. Ian said: “You’ve been bowling and fielding like a lot of pr**ks. A quick wicket here can change everything. We’re going out there to win.”
Walker bowled the first ball after lunch and got the well-set Alvin Kallicharran, batting on 91, to snick one to Rod Marsh behind the stumps. Walker had given his captain the breakthrough the team needed. West Indies were bowled out for 289 on a turning pitch. Australia won the next Test at Georgetown and with it the series.
Walker had a big heart off the field as well. In the Barbados Test of that series, he struck a friendship with a young fan called Joey, who went behind every boundary fence where Walker was stationed as a fielder. Joey used to say things like ‘I hope you get a wicket this over, Mr Walker’ or ‘That was a great ball, Mr Walker.’ It was clear that Joey played cricket, so when the sports equipment giants Gray-Nicolls handed Walker a kit including leg guards before the Test, Walker’s old pads were redundant. When he asked Joey, “If I gave you a pair of pads, do you reckon you could use them,” the young Barbadian replied, “Mr Walker, we ain’t got no pads, we ain’t got no bat, we ain’t got nothing.” Walker’s big pads were soon Joey’s. “Off he went,” Walker wrote in Tangles, “proud as punch, with about 40 kids straggling along behind him. I dare say one day, when he grows up, he’ll probably play against Australia and give us a thrashing.”
No West Indian who went by the name of Joey troubled Australia, but it took the Australians another 22 years to win in a Test series in the Caribbean.
Walker’s memorable Ashes series was the 1974-75 one. While Ian Chappell credits Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson for terrorising the Englishmen in the pace-famous Ashes series of 1974-75, he will also tell you that it was Walker who tied the England batsmen down. While Thomson ended up with 33 wickets and Lillee 25, Walker was not far behind with 23.
Walker was proud to be part of the pace trio in which Lillee and Thomson were the superstars. He also valued his baggy green caps. Mike Coward, Australia’s celebrated historian listened to a story from former paceman Len Pascoe, who revealed he confessed to Walker on the 1977 Ashes tour to England that he had doubts about being good enough to play for Australia. And Walker told his rookie teammate: “It (the baggy green) will give you the confidence to be the best you can be. This is the essence of the baggy green.” Pascoe will remember that just as Australian cricket will never forget Maxwell Henry Norman Walker. RIP.
mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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