An epic final - St George v Cumberland at Sydney Cricket Ground 1965-66
John Rogers | April 09, 2023
Doug Walters aged 19 will play his last game for two years – his birthdate has meant conscription into the Army on National Service – and no amount of lobbying will get the new superstar of world cricket out of it.
He is in cracking form. He’s had a season every cricketer dreams about. It’s not just his two debut test centuries – he’s rung up another four for NSW – plus two in Sydney Grade – including one against St George where Cumberland had by far the best of drawn one-dayer.
Doug Walters
Dougy’s captain Richie Benaud is just as focussed – he’s after back-to-back premierships as captain. He may have retired from test cricket two seasons back but is aged just 35 and is still hugely competitive, His 21 year old brother John Benaud – who will get a test century - is also in the side.
St George have been the powerhouse of Sydney Grade for ten years via their batting juggernaut – perhaps the best ever in Sydney Grade. They’ve won just one flag, so often are their stars missing on rep duties – and often away on tour at finals time. This year the team is in transition – two years from now they will start a run of three flags in a row. Sutherland’s entry into grade this summer has cost St George 20 players with superstar Norm O’Neill leaving to captain Sutherland. Five senior players remain, shepherding 6 youngsters, all 10 years younger on average.
Warren Saunders - St George Captain
St George’s top 3 of Watson, Saunders and Booth will score 30,000 runs for the club at an average nearing 45. Brian Booth was Australian captain this summer, but with the rise of Walters and a strong England side, when Brian missed out a couple of times, he found himself dropped. St George has another test player in Billy Watson, but 10 years previously. John O’Reilly and Keith Francis have 900 grade wickets between, both having played for NSW some years earlier. Both have thrived this summer behind two promising young quicks in John Martin & Peter Leslie - the latter chosen earlier in the summer for NSW at just 18 years of age.
Cumberland’s attack may look less threatening but will do great things for the club. The trump is Richie who can boast 248 test wickets at an average of 27. Opening the bowling will be Dougy Walters and Bill Lothian – medium-fast at best. Dougy though will notch up 49 test wickets at an excellent average of 29. Billy Lothian is in his first year, but he will take 450, 1st grade wickets at an average of just 20. Spin bowling support for Richie will come in the form of brothers John and Bob Aitken. Left-arm orthodox John will take 230 wickets over 21 years at an average of just 19. Right-arm orthodox Bob comes in 6th in the highest wicket-takers in Sydney Grade with 816 at an average of 23. He played for 28 years. Both brothers are in their 5th or 6th seasons.
Bob Aitken
Another key match-up will be the two captains. Richie will always be regarded as one of Australia’s finest-ever test captains. Saunders will captain St George for 14 season, only two of which his team doesn’t make the final four, He is held in high esteem as a captain in Sydney Grade for his positive approach and sense of fair play.
Benaud & Walters perhaps mean Cumberland start as narrow favourites.
Grade Finals were still being played at the SCG over two separate Saturdays – it’s a great thrill for a grade cricketer. Tension rises just walking through the SCG Members’ gates. It rises more when entering change rooms so different from suburban grounds. There’s a sense of trespassing in the homes of cricket’s greats. Out onto the marvellous ground for a quick look and the occasional noise reverberates around the empty stands like a gun-shot. Reaching the fabled pitch square, for the first time there is disappointment. The pitch looks damp and under-prepared. Rain about all week is the explanation. The same story is heard every year. Test and state games are now over for the season, footy season is approaching, footy players complain about the hardness of the pitch square, etc, etc.
Richie wins the toss - and is sufficiently dubious of the pitch, he sends St George in to bat.
Saunders and Watson have few alarms until Saunders is hit on the pads and on appeal, Test umpire Wykes hesitates and then raises the finger. Booth and Watson dig in against a tight attack. For three hours they have a memorable battle with Richie – it’s like watching test match as ones and twos and the occasional four are mixed with maiden overs. The bowlers at the other end are being switched around and are doing their job well, but test bowler against two test batsmen makes for an enthralling contest. Late into the afternoon session the spell is broken as Booth mistimes a drive and is caught and bowled by John Aitken, breaking a stand of 141. Two more fall quickly and then comes the crucial one of Watson, undone by Richie’s persistence. Born just months apart the two have been opponents for over 15 years. In his inimitable way Watson is heard calling down the pitch to Richie: “For goodness sake Benords, pitch ‘em up, you’ll never get a wicket bowling that defensive short stuff.” Richie’s lip juts out and he suggests to Billy that he just bats while he, Richie, will bowl. Watson’s eyes light up when a Richie flighted ball finally comes along, and skipping down the pitch, he tries to clear mid-on - and fails. Last laugh to Richie.
Billy Watson
When John O’Reilly is bowled for a duck, St George’s one for 160 has become five for 180. Another 40 are added by the lower order, but it takes a last wicket stand of 25 to take the total to 254. Richie and the Cumberland bowlers have applied the blowtorch of finals pressure and have kept Cumberland in the game.
There’s half an hour of play left and its St George’s turn to apply pressure and St George tearaway John “Big Fave” Martin lets fly –and both openers are quickly out. Facing up in the gloom are the two big names, Benaud and Walters. As hard as the young St George quicks try try, they can’t get a breakthrough, and stumps are drawn with the score two wickets for 20.
Day 2
The second Saturday is a rare, horrible, Sydney autumn day, windy and showery. Long-sleeved jumpers for the players, overcoats for spectators as an Antarctic blast heralded winter. The showers all day were squalls of light filmy stuff – enough to drive players from the field but not enough to prevent play resuming immediately after. It was no fun for either team, the pitch becoming slower, and the ball damp.
Richie Benaud’s experience was on show from ball 1 of day 2. ‘Get on top early’ is a mantra for successful run-chases and four overs in, Cumberland are remarkably well on top. Dougy and Richie are taking no prisoners and Saunders was soon chopping and changing his bowlers trying to stem the flow.
Seven times (according to Phil Wilkins in the Sun-Herald) the players were driven from the field, but seven times play resumed when the showers passed. Each time Richie and Dougy proceeded as if nothing had happened, while the bowlers had to contend with a damp ball and much use of sawdust. All four bowlers are of state quality, and each break would seem to be in the bowler’s favour, but milestones kept being ticked off – 50, 100, 150, 200.
Press reports say there were quite a few plays and misses outside off-stump, but to the St George players Dougy is sensational from close quarters. Here in his unbridled youth with confidence sky-high after his celebrated test debut season, he is perhaps at his absolute best. He is the essence of a strong country youth. While not tall and, at best, lightly-framed, he is all whipcord and tensile strength from growing up on a dairy-farm. He walks and moves slowly between deliveries– then explodes when game-on.
Richie Benaud - Cumberland's Captain
It is initially something of a surprise that Richie plays almost as well. When his test career finished he was often batting no.9, so a “tailender”. In his early career with NSW he was chosen to bat in the top 3, with his bowling as a bonus. As his bowling developed and became front-line, as captain he would put himself down the order and bring in another batsman. At 35, he is perhaps past his absolute best, but still strong and fit. His batting strength has always been his driving. Both he and brother John have high back-lifts and power the ball – and this day he powers away unmercifully.
From 10 in the morning till 3 in the afternoon while in and out of rain breaks, St George are run ragged by supremely good batting. It is bitterly cold, every one of the couple of hundred spectators who have braved the weather is huddled in behind the Members’ Pavilion windows – upstairs and down.
Around 3pm with the score around 2 for 200 and just 50 to get the players resume for the seventh time. Forced on the defensive all day, St George captain Saunders has had enough. “If we are going to lose this, then we might just as well lose it quickly,” he tells his players. “The ‘new ball’ is due in an over, so let’s crowd them, apply some pressure and hope for the best. And you, Sam (Brian Booth), bowl the first over, before we take the new ball”.
Richie is on strike. He now knows he is on 97 and Dougy is on 99. He is a touch surprised to see fieldsman all around his bat. He knows what Sam’s bowling is all about – he’s faced him in the nets for years while playing for Australia. No singles are on offer. He opts to play carefully after the break. The final ball is on leg-stump and a leg-glance will do for a single. But it drops just a touch on him and his leg glance is just off the ground.
Why Peter Leslie should be standing at leg-slip is almost incomprehensible. But there he is and as Richie glances, Leslie pouches. Perhaps pure luck he’s there, perhaps a Saunders brainwave.
Poker-faced as ever despite a century near-miss, head held high, Richie marches off, crossing with brother John. Over is called, and Saunders requests the new ball from Umpire Wykes, throws it to Leslie, and says “I know its up-hill and into the wind, but go for it.”
Peter Leslie
Leslie though is hurting. Shortly after lunch he’d felt something crick in his back. Never happened before. Every rain-break had him monopolising the masseur’s table.
With that catch, now his adrenalin is racing. Pain gone. He tears in and let’s fly. It’s a fraction short and outside off – and Dougy’s eyes light up. He launches into a scything back-foot square cut that has already brought him several boundaries. The new ball skids off the pitch and Dougy is a fraction late and it takes the edge and flies like a rocket into the slips. Booth recalled later: “I didn’t see it, but somehow I caught it - best catch of my life”. Instinctively at 2nd slip he has thrown out a left hand and the ball has – amazingly – stuck.
Over five hours St George never really looked like getting Benaud and Walters out, and suddenly both are gone within a few balls. They can’t possibly win this – or can they?
Two overs later Leslie has an inswinger finishing outside leg-stump and Rex Flindt has whipped it towards fine leg – and at leg gully, Billy Watson takes another superb catch. Soon after Bob Aitken gets a finer edge to another Leslie inswinger and keeper Ray Tozer takes perhaps his best catch of the year wide down leg-side. Leslie, with back pain returned, can hardly believe it when John Aitken becomes his 4th wicket – again edging into Booth’s safe hands.
John Benaud is fighting hard and the score mounts. Medium-pacer Keith Francis replaces Martin and as he has done so often in the past, skids the new ball into the pads – and John Benaud is gone, LBW. Soon after Bill Lothian edges a Francis delivery into the gully, and Watson takes his third catch of the innings.
Brian Booth
It’s been a veritable cascade of wickets - seven in all as 25 have been added - but no.11, keeper Darryl Smith holds tight as Wally Clifton (Alan Davidson’s cousin) mounts a rear-guard. The total creeps to 240, just 15 runs needed. Wally leg-glances Francis wide of Leslie at backward square-leg for what looks like an easy single, maybe two. Wally sets off, hoping for two to keep the strike. Leslie by this time is sore, hurting badly and very tired. He stumbles after it, so he says, and Wally seeing it, calls for a second. But he’s not counted on Leslie’s baseball background. Reaching it, Leslie lets fly, it’s straight over the stumps and Wally is well short.
St George have won. They’ve snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Perhaps Cumberland have done the reverse. What is clear is St George’s catching has been of the highest quality, Saunders captaincy has been inspirational, while the young Leslie and experienced Booth have triggered the most astonishing of comebacks.
And it has showcased cricket skills of the highest order as Booth and Watson did battle with Richie on Day 1, the Dougy and Richie batting masterclass on day 2 – all in testing conditions, with electric tension, magnetic leadership on both sides - and climaxing in a cliff-hanger of a finish.
