Arthur Morris - On The Way To Another Hundred

There are few cricketers who don't know of Arthur Morris. Perhaps those slap-happy youngsters who walk onto the field dressed in their street clothes and stay for only a few hours to loft the ball to all parts agricultural and do less than a bowling machine could ... perhaps they've not heard of him. If so, there can be no greater indictment on the direction of the game.

Arthur Morris is the best opening batsman to ever wear the Baggy Green, just shading Bill Ponsford. Many judges would say among the best four openers the game has seen: Hobbs, Greenidge and Hutton being the others. Not only is his record exemplary, his sense of humour, justice and understanding of cricket's place in the broader scheme of things makes him one of the rare special treasures to have visited the game.

In an interview on the ABC's Conversations this week, stand in interviewer Steve Cannane soon found it was a mistake to think he was talking with an old man. Morris, now 91, was sharper than any tack should have been for his age, quickly retelling anecdotes of Bradman with a cheekiness which marked his batting. His fondness for Hassett and O'Reilly was in marked contrast to the respect he directed at Bradman. The latter pair were described by their characteristics but the little batting master by his performances. For Keith Miller, as so many others have, he reserved his warmest praise.

Perhaps this bias towards the characters of his day stems from the fact he was also a character. Having excelled in tennis and football outside of his cricket exploits, Arthur Morris is the portrait of the sportsman of pre 1970. There was no specialisation. There was little conflict between sports. Even if playing for Australia in an Ashes series during the summer, you still pulled on your footy boots and turned out for St George. Many Australian cricketers were the same, with golf and baseball other favoured pastimes. Money, marketing, packed programs and the sudden discovery that bodies couldn't take the strain, stopped all that in the twenty years after 1990, yet Australian cricket can't go a season without four fast bowlers breaking down and the skipper has to miss tours and do back stretches in between overs.

It was about Bradman that the interview threw up perhaps its greatest controversy, with Morris refusing to accept the conclusions of Malcolm Knox (Bradman's War) that Bradman was hard and ruthless, a minder of his own statistics or determined to make the 1948 English pay the bill for his Bodyline scars. Knox and his book remained unnamed but refuted none the less.

"Where do they get all these fantasies?" Morris asked with incredulity.

He did concede, however, that Bradman could be ruthless "at times", quoting first class games from the tour when county sides were already beaten but Bradman would have the team bat on.

Morris had been a left arm "chinaman" when he played for the St George Green Shield side as a fifteen year old and broke into the first grade side at Hurstville Oval doing the same under Bill O'Reilly. Within a few matches, an opposition captain, having watched Morris bowl and then score 25 batting at eleven, suggested he give the bowling away and concentrate on his batting. Three years later, in 1940 and now just 18, he scored his first hundred in first grade and three weeks later a century in each innings of his Sheffield Shield debut at the SCG against Queensland.

He still holds the record for the most wickets in a Green Shield season for St George. Ray Lindwall holds the record for the most runs. Cricket loves its ironies.

It's said that the war robbed Morris of his best years, so heaven knows how highly we might have judged his record if that be true. In 1948, few recognise that he scored more runs and at a higher average than Bradman. Fewer remember that he scored the definitive attacking century in the historic win at Headingly. Almost no one remembers he was making 196 whilst England Hollies(d) for a Bradman at the Oval. His batting was aggressive, taking on the bowlers that furrowed other brows. Hitting over the top never worried him like it had Bradman.

A left hander like Dave Warner, Lindsay Hasset nicknamed him "Dasher". Its interesting to ponder how long his approach would be allowed to persist in this day of beige reproduction, of left elbow up and the forward press. Morris believes that the best batsmen and the fastest scorers have always been men who played back, who weren't restricted by being stranded on the front foot. He quotes McCabe as having "never played forward to any ball in his career."

Morris is clearly proud of being the Australia vice-captain for 25 Tests, with his great mate Lindsay Hassett as skipper ... but quickly moved to a story to illustrate Hassett's devilish sense of humour. A few years after his first class retirement, he was invited to play in a Prime Minster's XI game against the touring Englishmen and made a stylish seventy, with his favourite bat. Runs can be flattering to a retired batsman (not batter ... he abhors the term) but Ted Dexter wasn't.

"Who's this old bloke getting runs?"  said the future head of English selectors.

As he left the arena to generous applause, Hassett passed him on the way out and asked for a loan of his bat. An old mate can only say yes, even when handing over such a prized possession, but Morris was horrified to watch his mate pause at the boundary at the end of his innings. Standing beside their host, Morris was aghast to hear Bob Menzies say, "What a wonderful fellow is that Hassett, giving his bat away to a young lad. What generosity!"

"Pig's arse!" Morris yelled before he could stop himself. It became worse at the end of the match when the lad turned up at the door asking for Morris' signature!

There is little doubt that Morris belongs to another era: a time when even Test players turned up with a plate for afternoon tea at their club games. A time where everything they did wasn't under scrutiny, ever kilojoule counted, ever bowel movement reported. You didn't self-record a sneeze or a scratch or a bruise. Sniffles went on your sleeve not your daily well-being chart. Coaches weren't needed in the long afternoons because mates were enough help as you shadow-batted at the boundary's edge and older heads made suggestions about technique. Conditions were worse, pay was lousy and performances were outstanding.

Alan Byrne left
my Dad right

My Dad likes to reminisce about cricket on either side of the second world war. His ties to it were stronger then, growing up in Kogarah, when five or six St George players were in the Test side. Dad's uncle and best mate, Alan Byrne - they were the same age - opened the batting for St George during the 1940's with Arthur Morris at the other end. Alan made his first hundred at Petersham Oval, the day another St George great, Les Favell, made his. Alan made more than four thousand runs for St George (more than Bradman) at a time when they were probably the strongest club side in the world and he was good enough to be named in the St George team of the decade for the 1940's when Mike Coward wrote the St George history. His opening partner in that selection was, not surprisingly, Morris: Ray Lindwall and Bill O'Reilly batted further down. Brother Lance Byrne had a 600 run first grade season in the early forties as well: another member of "O'Reilly's Babes". Visitors to Dad's Green St home included Lindwall and other cricketing stars, often standing around uncomfortably as my grandma (Alan and Lance's sister) served them tea.

St George 1st Grade
Premiers 1940-41
Alan (left) and Lance (right)
flank the front row.

There was no sense of celebrity. These were just mates of "Lumpy", my great uncle's nickname and one I was allowed to address him by many years later as he and Dad's brother Brian tried to show me how to bat in our backyard at Miranda. The fact it didn't work doesn't diminish the memory. It was Brian who wore Hawaiian shirts. I picked up the wrong habits.

Dad tells the story of giving Lindwall and a mate a lift to an oval one day in the early 1950's. The mate asked, from the back seat, what Dad thought of Keith Miller.

"Bloody mug lair!" came Dad's disparaging reply.

When they jumped from the car, the mate stuck his face at the driver's side widnow.

"I couldn't agree more," he said through a broad grin.

Lindwall and his mate Miller wandered off through the crowd.

Click to hear the
ABC Conversations interview

Arthur Morris doesn't just belong to those days. He belongs to the warp and weft that is Australian cricket. Whilst its easy to say it was a better time, that would be inaccurate. A simpler time perhaps. A time when it was easier for individuals to bring their personality to the game and so shape it. Different, not better ...

... but am I the only one who wouldn't mind going back there?