Tuffers’ Ashes Heroes, page 24
These days, gazing from the TMS box, I see Merv sat in the crowd at Ashes Tests in his modern guise as a tour guide. He’ll have 50 Aussies all wearing yellow sat around him, the main surprise being that he hasn’t got them on their feet bellowing obscenities at the English batsmen. At least he never went back to his original job, as a menswear salesman. No-one wants to pick a jacket off the rail and be told from six inches distance, ‘You’re never going to fit in that, you fat bastard.’
Merv was the classic Aussie of his time. A demon on the pitch, something completely different off it. After all, when, as a wannabe cricketer in Melbourne, he’d spotted a young Ian Botham in town and asked him for some advice, Beefy’s suggestion was that he take up tennis or golf instead. A few years later, after making his Ashes debut in the Brisbane Test of 1986, in which Beefy smashed England to victory with 138, Merv asked what Beefy thought of his advice now. It was a free header for the great all-rounder, especially since he’d taken 22 off a single Merv over. Naturally, he impressed on his inquisitor that clearly he’d been right. And yet, 38 years later, there was Merv plucking Beefy from a shark-infested river. They’d been mates all that time. Says everything for how the Ashes rivalry should operate. Same as if I’d have been there, Merv, and it was you floundering in the depths, I’d have pulled you out.
No, really, pal, I would. Honest.
20 Ashes Tests
Wickets: 75
Best Bowling: 5–92
Avg: 30.25
Five-wicket Innings: 1
Ten-wicket Matches: 0
Runs: 278
Highest Score: 71
Avg: 13.23
Hundreds: 0
Fifties: 1
And me?
12 Ashes Tests
Wickets: 36
Best Bowling: 7–66
Avg: 38.13
Five-wicket Innings: 2
Ten-wicket Matches: 1
Runs: 30
Highest Score: 8
Avg: 2.72
(Look, I wasn’t there for my batting was I?)
Acknowledgements
Compiling my Ashes heroes hasn’t been easy. There are more than a few names that didn’t quite end up on the honours board. It’s the first time in my life I’ve had a bit of sympathy for selectors.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and every player, in blue cap or green, who shared my Ashes odyssey. There is pleasure and pain in being an Ashes cricketer, but it is never less than the most remarkable of experiences. Thank you for being part of the most incredible memories a bloke could ever have.
To those I watched growing up, who helped form the idea that I too might one day be part of the greatest sporting contest on Earth, thank you too. It was your character, your spirit, that planted the seed. Even so, getting into the arena was far from easy, and my deep gratitude goes to those cricketers and coaches who supported me and gave me belief that I could make the leap.
I have loved writing this book, but not a word of it would have appeared without the support of my wife, Dawn. For all the time I’ve spent squirelling away on this project, thank you. I can lift my head up from the laptop now – at least until the next one! Huge thanks also to Jonathan Taylor at HarperCollins for his support and advice, and John Woodhouse for helping me transfer our many highly enjoyable chats to the page. We did occasionally manage a little bit of work between the laughs.
I suppose more than anyone I should thank a certain Reginald Shirley Walkinshaw Brooks, the young Sporting Times journalist, who, after England lost at The Oval, on 29 August, 1882, penned the mock obituary of English cricket that gave birth to this most remarkable of contests. ‘The body will be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia,’ he wrote. There were a couple of times playing the Aussies I felt like I’d been cremated too! But seriously, to be witness to such drama, such tradition, first in the field, and then from the commentary box, has never been less than the hugest of treats.
Join me in a sip of something bubbly, preferably from a bottle freshly sabred by David Gower, as I raise my glass and say, ‘The Ashes! Thank you, and long may you continue!’
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Phil Tufnell, Tuffers’ Ashes Heroes
