Legend with Lawry load of memories
WHEN Bill Lawry first started commentating on cricket on TV he was advised by his friend Keith Stackpole to “hang on to his day job” as a sales manager for a white goods company.
“Let’s just enjoy ourselves,” Stackpole told his former Victoria and Australia teammate. “It’ll never last.”
This week the veteran commentator, now 80, will be in his usual seat for the Sydney Test having enjoyed a longer stint behind the microphone than he did as a player and, in his words, with “nothing but good memories”.
Lawry’s longevity carries certain echoes of his playing style as an opener – difficult to dislodge. One seven-and-a-halfhour 135 at the Oval in an Ashes Test in 1968 led to him being famously labelled “a corpse with pads”.
As a commentator he has become much-loved, with his excitable style, high-pitched “got ’im, yes!” at the fall of a wicket, his pigeon-fancying, and relationships with greats like Tony Greig and Richie Benaud as caricatured so IN SYDNEY brilliantly by the Australian comedian Billy Birmingham’s Twelfth Man recordings.
“I don’t think deep down Richie really liked those but Greigy loved them,” said Lawry. “He would always have the new tape on in the car going to the ground and say, ‘Listen to this Bill’ then laugh and laugh.”
His affection for Greig comes across clearly, but it is his admiration and respect for Benaud, right, that shines through two and a half years after his death.
“Richie was my first captain when I made the Australia team and I was always really a little in awe of him,” said Lawry. “He was a man of few words but he had the openneck shirt, he had the Brylcreem a bit like Denis Compton.
“Those tours in the Fifties were long and Richie was in complete control of everything. There were no coaches, just a tour manager, and we went 21 days on the boat, played every county in five and a half months, then 21 days back on the ship travelling first class.
“Every day we’d be in black tie. Richie would be up on the captain’s table; we would be with the engineers at the back.
“I remember when we got over to England the captain had to speak at a black-tie dinner at the Savoy in front of 700 people. In 1956 I was right down the back almost behind a pillar but I remember thinking he was just the master. “He was one of those lucky guys who people were just waiting for the next word to come out. He spoke so slowly that people were, ‘What word’s he gonna say?’ He would have made a great actor. He had the great poise and the presence and charisma.” Benaud transferred it effortlessly to television and it brought him fame and fortune for a second time. And it was an invite from his friend which got Lawry on board for Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket in 1977.
“I wouldn’t have done it had it not been for Richie. I was ready to just fly my pigeons,” said Lawry.
“They were great days. On Channel Nine in those days it was just a joy to be there. Great fun with a fabulous team – Richie, Fred Trueman, Keith Stackpole, myself and then Tony Cozier from the West Indies.
“We used to go out to Daphne and Richie’s place in Coogee during the Sydney Test match. Those were wonderful nights with him buzzing around like a waiter and then at half-nine getting up and saying, ‘Right, I’m going to bed. Your taxis are booked’.”
Lawry will travel to Coogee to pay his respects during this week’s Test and allow himself a smile when he sees ‘the Richies’ in the stands, dressed in their beige jackets and silver-grey wigs, waving their inflatable Channel Nine microphones.
It is hard to imagine another commentator getting such an accolade, for all that Lawry deserves credit for 40 years without gathering a bad word.
He sees it differently, of course. “Forty years watching the greatest players from the best seat in the house,” he said. “I’ve just been so lucky.”