The Keepers - part four

Ian Elks | June 05, 2023

Multi part interview with three of the finest Queensland and University of Queensland Wicket Keepers Lew Cooper, Wade Seccombe and Chris Hartley

What has resulted in the biggest changes to cricket —- covered wickets, helmets/protective gear, front foot rule, bat technology, fitness, nutrition, DRS, other?

Lew – Kerry Packer’s one-day business. Shake up of the game, but it was also the huge improvement in fielding and running between the wickets. Money, professionalism. I used to go to school before play, otherwise I didn’t make any money, and I had a wife and two kids. The only time I used to make any money was on the Southern Tour and I made 100 pounds.

Ian – They would have been fun times?

Lew – Yes, they were a lot of fun — many stories. 

Ian – Anything we can publish?

Lew – I remember one, to give you an idea of how the attitude was. We were over in Perth and I was rounding up the players to get into the cabs to go to the ground. I walked pass the bar and saw Des Bull, our opening bat, in the bar having a brandy on the morning of the match. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m having a heart starter, I’m crook, I’ve got blisters on my feet.’ I looked down and he had no shoes on. I said, ‘What do you mean you got blisters on your feet?’ He said, ‘Ahhh, I took a sheila out last night, and she was a squash player. So to impress her, I played squash with her in my bare feet!’ Anyway, he ended up with blisters on his feet and he could hardly walk — I can’t remember how he went, opening the batting that morning at the WACA!

So money made a difference, as you had to try and hold down a job while playing. I remember Ray Reynolds going back onto the cane farm when Ian Redpath was picked in front him to go to England. Tommy Veivers just announced, in the dressing room one night, that he was retiring at age 29 because 4BC had offered him a job, so yes, it was different.

Wade – TV and the money that came in on the back of it. Covered wickets would have been massive.

Lew – When I first started playing club cricket, they used to cover the bowlers run ups but not the pitch. Some grounds just didn’t have covers.

Ian – Souths never had any unless they were batting.

Lew – I can’t get over how so many of the fast bowlers get crook nowadays. It must be the amount of cricket they play, as it never seemed to be a problem when we were playing.

Chris – I don’t think it’s the biggest thing that’s changed the game, but the biggest thing in the current generation is the sports science and technology. Now you’ve got a coach, a physio, a doctor, a dietician and a whole crew of support staff. It’s someone’s job to make sure that someone doesn’t get injured, so how do you do that? You have sports scientists counting how many balls they’re bowling. There are a lot of touch points now, and it’s all on the back of sports science. It’s taken away or changed the conventional bat and ball contest.

Lew – I picked up a pair of keeping gloves the other day and I couldn’t believe how flimsy they were. I had three pair of gloves in my career (50 years), you used to keep them until they had literally fallen apart.

Wade – When I gave up ten years ago, I would go through two pairs in a season and have one pair preparing.

Chris – I wore a pair a few weeks ago where I took them straight out of the pack straight onto the ground and didn’t even have a catch with them. I go through three pairs a year. No one repairs the rubber on gloves anymore

The biggest change to cricket is the commercialisation of it, as well as the sports science side of it — that encompasses professionalism, preparation, fitness programs, and I think it’s fair to say the cricketers are looked at more as athletes nowadays.

Wade – How can a team not get through 90 overs in the day? I can’t believe that.

Lew – It’s like in tennis, they have penalty points. They should have the same in cricket. For every over not bowled, the opposition gets five or ten runs. I’ll bet you the 90 overs get bowled then. It’s a major topic that’s discussed frequently on radio and TV. At least, if we do something about it, we won’t have to listen to them go on and on about it!!

Wade – Whatever the current run rate is, double it as the penalty.

The Gabba – given Lew’s experience at the Cricketers’ Club and the number of games for each of you, you three guys would know the Gabba better than most. Greatest memory of the Gabba? How do you rate the new Gabba vs the old?

Lew – I have spent most of my life at the Gabba. I’m lucky I’m a member of the Trust and I find it great. Air-conditioned, drink out of glass, functions etc. The ground and wicket are great.

Wade – It’s lost its traits.

Lew – Actually, yes, it’s a real shame to have lost the hill and the old scoreboard. In the old days, all the drunks were on the hill, so the constabulary only had to concentrate on that part of the ground. Nowadays, they have to police all of the grandstands! In the old days, you didn’t have to worry about them. They were in their own little world on the hill.

We did 150 kegs in the bar on the hill one day. We had thirteen staff up there on that day. The girls worked in their bare feet because there was so much spillage! I got called over there one day because there was some idiot who had climbed up a light pole located on the hill. He was up the top, but the weird thing was that he had goggles and flippers on! It was Rupert (McCall).

So they got him down from that and chucked him out of the ground. Then there was someone climbing the scoreboard, going in and out of the holes like a human fly! Of course, it was Rupert. Somehow he found his way back in! So the new ground is good, but it has lost something.

Chris – The wicket at the Gabba is the best in Australia by a mile, if not the world. From a cricket perspective, it’s as good a place to play, and that flows on to the spectator. It’s a modern ground that suits the modern game.

Wade – You used to get a breeze through the Gabba prior to the construction — it’s a very hot place now from a playing and a spectating perspective — stifling some times. However, with that breeze at the old Gabba, you used to get aromas from the BBQ at the Cricketers’ Club at around 11.00 o’clock. The smell of steak burgers wafting across the ground wasn’t helpful when you were playing.

Lew – I used to organise the BBQ on Sunday nights, and both teams would come along. It used to be a great atmosphere. I used to ensure that the staff were appropriate (my most attractive and attentive help …). Every Sunday night. After I left there they cut it out.