Wicketkeeping, they say, is a thankless job. Apart from the fact that wicketkeepers generally get noticed only when they falter, they are also the ones who have endured a waiting period for higher honours.
Syed Kirmani made his maiden tour with the Indian team in 1971 (England) but only played his first Test at Auckland in January 1976. Bob Taylor debuted for England in February 1971 (vs NZ) and played his next Test in December 1977 (vs Pakistan). Bharat Reddy was understudy to Kirmani on the 1977-78 tour of Australia and 1978-79 tour of Pakistan. His chance to keep wickets for India came only when the selectors dropped Kirmani for the 1979 tour of England; the grapevine being because he was a possible Kerry Packer World Series Cricket (WSC) signee.
Departed wicketkeeper-opening batsman Kiran Ashar made his first-class debut for Mumbai in the 1968-69 Irani Cup, got injured in the game, and was recalled in the 1976-77 Ranji Trophy season. His namesake More from Baroda figured in a Test a good three years after he was picked in the squad for the 1982-83 tour of the West Indies during the Kirmani years. David Murray toured with the West Indies as Deryck Murray’s junior from 1973, but got his Test opportunity in 1978, when war broke out between the Packer-signed players and West Indies board. Come to think of it, a lot of wicketkeepers have played the waiting game. Australia’s John Maclean, who passed away at the age of 80 last week, went through a remarkable wait.
Maclean, say pundits, was tipped to replace Brian Taber for the 1970-71 Ashes series. He was part of a second-string Australian team’s tour to New Zealand in 1970 and was highly rated for his wicketkeeping and batting. Dennis Lillee, Greg Chappell, Terry Jenner, Kerry O’Keeffe and Alan ‘Froggy’ Thomson who were Maclean’s teammates on that February 20-April 1, 1970 trip, made their debuts in the Ashes series that unfolded later that year.
But when it came to blooding a new wicketkeeper, the selection committee, which Sir Donald Bradman was a part of, went for Rodney Marsh. According to Marsh in his book You’ll Keep, both stumpers had dinner together at Maclean’s Brisbane home the night the selectors picked the squad for the first Test. They didn’t have a clue of this development as they broke bread together. Marsh learnt about his selection through a phone call from his wife in Perth the following morning. The wait had only just begun for Maclean. He was even passed over when it came to finding a place in Bob Simpson’s international cricket-inexperienced Australia squad that faced up to the 1977-78 Indian tourists.
While Marsh was playing his first season of WSC, the selectors chose Steve Rixon for the India Tests. Maclean finally broke into the squad for the 1978-79 Ashes.
On Test debut in Brisbane, Maclean helped revive Australia with an unbeaten 33 out of a feeble 116 and then went on to claim five catches in England’s first innings. He provided no reason to be dropped mid-series but sustained an eye injury in the build-up to the fourth Test at Sydney while facing pacer Alan Hurst in the nets. His captain Graham Yallop, who was bowling in the same net, saw it all. “Alan [Hurst] and I raced up to him. ‘I’m gone, I’m gone,’ he kept saying,” Yallop wrote in the book, Lambs to the Slaughter.
Maclean was cleared to play the Test with six stitches over his left eye but had trouble continuing on Day One itself. Yallop took over the big gloves for a while before Maclean was back. “Macca’s effort really was one of a hero. All he kept saying was that it might improve, and that he did not want to let the team down, so he would stick on,” Yallop further wrote.
A good five years before his Test debut, Maclean gave up the Queensland captaincy so that Greg Chappell could become captain in his 1973-74 South Australia to Queensland move. “It was much better being vice-captain of a successful outfit than captain of an unsuccessful one,” Maclean told Chappell’s biographer Adrian McGregor.
Apart from Marsh, Maclean had an association with another Australian great wicketkeeper — Ian Healy. In Hands & Heals, Healy wrote about first meeting Maclean in 1974 when the Queensland team visited Biloela. Healy, then 10, said Maclean “kindly talked to me about keeping and showed me his gloves.” When the future Test stumper asked where he could get a pair, Maclean directed him to a sports store in Brisbane.
Maclean ended up being a mentor to Healy who he first sounded out about the possibility of him being selected in The Team of the Century in 2000. As you can see, Maclean’s contribution to Australian cricket goes beyond four Tests and playing the last of those Tests in pain. Yet, Maclean didn’t complain. Gratitude came shining through in a 2014 chat with journalist Peter Hanlon: “I was lucky to get four Tests. I was lucky to play for Queensland, to be honest. You take what you can get.”
Rest in peace, stumper.
mid-day’s Deputy 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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