Don't run out on modern sport

18 May 2006

I have never devised questions for a sports trivia night. But an easy question might be to name the moderately successful Australian left-hand opening batsman of the late 1970s and early 80s who was considered a bad judge of a run.

If you are thinking Graeme Wood, you have won the jackpot. Debuting for Western Australia at the age of 20 in the 1976-77 season, Wood played his first Test the following year. The team had been gutted by the exodus of top line players to Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. He maintained his place in the national team after the return of the rebel players two years later, finishing his international career in the summer of 1988-89.

He averaged in the low 30s in both Test and One Day Internationals (ODI) but showed determination and skill in overcoming his short frame and a barrage of lethal West Indian bowlers at the pinnacle of their powers. He played in over 40 international matches against the West Indians. Opening the batting against Holding, Roberts, Garner, Marshall and company was not for lily-livered souls. Wood showed great courage in these encounters which were as much about physical prowess as they were wars of the mind.

But Wood remains known to Australian sports followers as a very poor runner between wickets. But \nII always thought this an unfair legacy for Wood to inherit. Perhaps I sympathised with him because I too was a \nleft-hand opener! \n A review of Wood’s Test career \nsupports my case. He was run out on only a half a dozen occasions in \n112 innings. But he did \nfeel short of his crease 10 times in his 66 dismissals in \ninternational one-dayers. In five successive games in 1981, Wood was run out four \ntimes. \n But Wood\'s \nlegacy to modern cricket is more \nsignificant. He was playing \nthe shortened version of the game in its infant \ndays. And one-day cricket has also left its mark on other forms of \ncricket. The first World Cup had been held in 1975. But \nAustralian cricket fans\' introduction to \nthe game was really through w the colourful Packer \ncircus. \n Contemporary cricketers think little \nof dropping the ball at their feet and setting off for a run. The Waugh \nbrothers ran a production line in \ntheir efficiency at this \npractice. It is now an instinctive part of the game at all \nlevels. The 22 yards from stumps to stumps no longer seems a proverbial country mile. Wood was a pioneer

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Don't run out on modern sport

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