I was not good enough to be a first class player but in November 1979 I was fortunate to be chosen as captain of the Australian Universities team to play the England Test team at Adelaide Oval. It was a serious 4 day match as England were due to play Australia in the First Test a week later.

We were very weak “on paper” and I got a call from the Australian Cricket Board that the toss with Mike Brearley should be a “pretend “ toss and that England had to bat first no matter what. I assume they thought we would be dismissed for a very low score if I decided to bat first.

As captain I had a “secret weapon” in leg spinner Geoff Kirkwood. I knew him v well as he came from my club, University of NSW. He was a colourful personality. Kirky was outstanding at drinking, smoking and playing the piano. Whilst he had trouble holding down a first grade spot due to our NSW squad spinners Mark Ray, Paddy Grattan-Smith and Steve Campbell I knew he had the X factor. Yes he had a great top spinner and England were known to be very poor against leggies in that era.

Being aware of these factors I brought Kirkwood onto bowl very early. Our opening bowler Peter Clough had set it up by bowling quickly at Boycott and Brearley and I was confident when Kirky came on. My big decision as captain was to get him to bowl without anyone in the deep on the leg side.

Sure enough with no one in the deep batsmen such as Botham, Gooch and Randall attempted to slog him when he bowled too short. But they could not pick his top spinner….it skidded onto them too quickly and they just mishit his short ones to midwicket or square leg

Kirky finished with 5 wickets off 16 overs and we dismissed England for 179. In response Dirk Wellham batted superbly for us and we took a first innings lead. This was deservedly Kirky’s match and he was the lead story on the back page of every Australian newspaper. Brearley and I batted poorly in this match but I felt I “out captained” him due to my successful tactics with Kirky.