The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), scene of so many big sporting occasions - from the Olympic Games of 1956, the yearly Australian Rules final, to innumerable cricket internationals - played host to a more modest competition last Monday, the Australian PGA Tour players took on an MCC XI at cricket.
The Australian golfers were taking this seriously; they had set up a practice session the previous week in Sydney to select a side. So the credentials of the possibles were presented to the selectors and the run around in Sydney was supposed to make enough of an impression to seal a place on the side.
There were so many possibles that the selectors hadn't the heart to reject any of them, so the PGA Tour ended up fielding a side of XV. Andrew Langford-Jones, the tour official in charge of organising the event, was wise enough to name his boss, Trevor Herden, the director of tour operations, as the first player in the side. Terry Gale's talent for cricket was well-known as he is a former West Australian State player. He was to open the batting for the Tour. He couldn't get his eye in at the MCG crease and was quickly dismissed for a duck. Aaron Baddeley, some 35 years Gale's junior, was the next to face the fearsome MCC attack. He didn't last much longer. He resorted to a photo opportunity, organised by potential handlers no doubt, with the young Australian Open champion posing like he was attempting to hit a driver over the Southern stand. The golfers were left chasing a total of 178 in 35 overs and with some three wickets down for 25 runs, it was looking like an embarrassing defeat until Craig Parry (Popeye) came to the crease. He got off to a quick start and struck up an entertaining and useful partnership with the burly Peter McWhinney. McWhinney had a good schoolboy cricket record. He reckons he should have got on the Australian schools' team, but for an early lesson in the politics of team sport. Obviously Peter had been a lithesome schoolboy, enabling him to work up a steamy pace delivery. But by the time he got to the Melbourne crease, Popeye had taken to the wicket and was dispatching the hosts' attack to the outfield in rapid succession. The trouble was that the outfield was soft and the boundary a long way away. So knocking the ball over the rope required a big hit. Parry engaged McWhinney in more between-wicket running than he had done since he was a schoolboy. Some of the displays of agility on the field by the golfers gave weight to the argument that you don't have to be remotely fit to play golf at a high level. What should have been comfortable threes were reduced to staggering twos due to the condition of the two athletes at the crease, not to detract from the obvious talent and shotmaking ability of Parry.
By the time McWhinney had been run out he just had enough energy to walk back to the boundary rope and collapse in a heap. In came Wayne Smith muttering to the modest group of spectators (the bulk of whom were loyal caddies, who were getting a rare chance to hurl abuse at their masters) "see if I can make a seven out here." That was a reference to a triple bogey he had made the previous day in the final round of the Norman tournament, which had put him out of contention for the title as early as the third hole.
The golfers came up 10 shy of the hosts' total without using their secret batting weapon in Dean Jones, the ex-Test cricketer for Australia. However, the next day the extent of damage that a social game of cricket can inflict became apparent. Stephen Leaney had two of his fingers looking like a couple of inflated pork sausages. Next to show up at casualty was Popeye. The exertion of scoring 68 runs without a boundary, left him all but lame with pulled hamstrings.
Meanwhile next week's sponsors are happy that the Sydney Cricket Ground have not made a similar offer to the Tour's frustrated cricketers. They are expecting a full field of fit players on Thursday.
