Brian Taber - "Swinging Sixties" keeper
John Rogers | July 27, 2023
Until Brian Taber arrived, Australian wicket keepers might have been best in the world, but by no stretch of the imagination were they pretty.
His predecessors mostly had been short and squat, some balding, and often quite rotund practitioners, disinterested in how they looked - think Don Tallon, Gil Langley, Wally Grout, Barry Jarman. My goodness they were good - and when he joined their company, Brian Taber was every bit as good. Known as "Herby" to a select few, he beat many renowned keepers to be named in the NSW team of the Millennium.
Yet without being showy, Tabbsy brought style and grace to the art of wicket-keeping. What he added to that dark art was that he personified Australia of the swinging sixties. He was slim, with thick, dark wavy hair that extended into luxuriant sideburns, he had the feet of a dancer, and did everything with a pleasing style. He kept a straight back, bending at the hips rather than the waist as everyone else did, and skipped as gathered the delivery while moving gracefully otherwise. A wide delivery seemed to disappear soundlessly into his gloves and be flicked softly sideways to slips. It was not in the least artificial, simply doing his job quietly and effortlessly, but with a sort of “zip’. “Mod” cricketers suddenly abounded, with Tabbsy a George Harrison to Ian Chappell’s John Lennon and Dennis Lillee’s Paul McCartney.
These days, nearly every keeper tries to do it in the style that Tabbsy first brought to the game (Johnny Bairstow an exception!). Many of them have added all sorts of extras that they think might add panache - but very few have had the effortless class that Tabbsy exuded.
Sadly, for him, his career at the top was short - he was dumped for - you guessed it - a squat, rotund, unattractive- looking keeper. It was a bombshell moment of the 1970-71 Ashes series in Australia. There’d been no hint of his axing. NSW’s captain, impeccable keeper, and favourite son, dropped! For who? Someone from WA called Rodney Marsh. Isn’t he just a young WA batsman? The NSW media were vitriolic and when Rod Marsh turfed a couple of catches on debut with shirt hanging out of the back of his well-rounded trousers plus sweat pouring off him, “iron Gloves” was bestowed upon him. By the series end, Rod had shown his worth and the criticism led him to begin the “two meals a day” regime that would shed many a kilo, and provide the basis for long career at the top.
The inescapable truth was that Brian had been dropped as a keeper because his batting had been found wanting when the top order failed, giving the team the look of a long tail. Yet he’d been regarded as a good batsman in Sydney Grade, often opening for his club Gordon. But on the state and national scenes in the late sixties as NSW’s and Australia’s fortunes waned, his lack of consistent success with the bat meant that selectors looked past his outstanding keeping.
Tabbsy would understudy Marsh on the Ashes tour in 1972, but never played another test.
In all he played 16 tests with just one of them in Australia. and that the last at Sydney in 1968-69, replacing a fading Barry Jarman. Ironically his two innings of 48 and 15 - on his home ground - were unbeaten. Tests that series were 6-day affairs and allowed Dougy Walters to amass 242 and 103, setting the Windies a 735 run target and when they fell short by 382, at least Brian could say his only test in Australia was a winning one. Of his other 15 tests, 9 were in South Africa, the first 5 of which in 1966-67 (when Jarman was unavailable) brought just one win. He played one test in England in 1968 which was a rain-affected draw. His Sydney Test meant he was for the first-time no.1 keeper, as he would be for a torrid 5-months, 9-test tour of India and South Africa. While beating India 3-1, there was many a horror story of accommodation, food, travel, etc, and the South African leg - the last “apartheid” series - was a disaster, losing 4-nil. Inevitably there are casualties after such losses, and for the up-coming 70-71 Ashes, Tabbsy became one of them.
Amongst cricketers, Tabbsy was one of the most popular ever to play the game. He always seemed more interested in others than himself, there was always a friendly smile, and he loved socialising and having a drink with the opposition after a game. But he preferred being in the background - out front, charismatic leadership was not Tabbsy’s way. When Bob Simpson, the last of the NSW greats of the 1950s and 1960s, retired in 1967, the most experienced cricketers left were Tabbsy aged 28 and Doug Walters aged 23 who’d recently lost two seasons via National Service. Brian was made vice-captain to Doug, and being older meant much leadership responsibility fell on him, which he didn't need as his chances of becoming Test keeper mounted, especially as the NSW team performed poorly.
His efforts for NSW and his misfortune at Australian level did not go unnoticed. The coaching bug had hit Australia, and while still an active cricketer, Brian was appointed NSW cricket coach in 1970 and a year later when Rothmans established its National Sport Foundation with Alan Davidson as CEO, it appointed as National Director of cricket coaching, Brian Taber. Tabbsy had a nice office at Cricket NSW in George Street and a palatial one on the 6th Floor in Macquarie Street in a now demolished high-rise, just a few buildings up from the Sydney Opera House. Brian immediately set about producing Australian cricket’s first ever coaching manual in conjunction with the Sport Foundation’s marketing consultant Richie Benaud, for whom I happened to be working. From close quarters I saw Brian put the manual together very thoughtfully, as well as interacting with kids in its implementation in the most caring and thoughtful way possible.
That was just one of my many interactions with Brian before Perth called me in 1980. For years as a would-be batsman, I was always in peril of joining the hundreds at Chatswood Oval recorded as “stumped B Taber, bowled R Guy” - followed by an even worse peril as I joined the two of them afterwards over the road in Gordon rugby club. I batted with Brian in my debut match for NSW, made social tours to Gundagai and Mackay in Queensland, and briefly joined him on the NSW selection committee. One memory I’ve never forgotten was as a 16-year-old in my home town of Gosford going out to bat against a Gordon Colts team that boasted Brian as the NSW Colts wicket-keeper. I faced up to the bowling of Ross Taber, Brian’s elder brother, who from the stand square of the wicket appeared to be a very slow, ineffectual medium-pacer, who somehow had just got a wicket. The first ball was delivered what seemed like a metre wide of me, so I opted to let it pass - until suddenly it changed direction and swerved in alarmingly. It was a huge in-swinger, the likes of which I’d never seen before. With a fresh, moist breeze coming off the bay behind me, Ross had perfect conditions for it, and a year or two later I saw NSW bowler Bob Leatherbarrow do similar. (Hand-stitched balls in those days - can we please bring them back?). My belated, hasty jab at the ball was to no avail. Somewhat incredulously, I turned to look at my disturbed stumps only to see the smiling face of Brian and hear for the first time that deep-throated chuckle accompanied by asthmatic cough that will be so familiar to his thousands of friends.
RIP Tabbsy.
