Ian Canney was regarded as one of the finest batsmen in ACT cricket in the sixties and seventies.
In my early years at Norths, I was in awe of him in the nets, thinking how you would get a ball past that front pad and bat, that appeared to be glued together.
On practice nights, if the turf nets at Majura or Dickson were a bit dodgy, which was most of the time, Ian Canney would look decidedly uncomfortable against the short stuff from quick bowlers like the aptly named, Randal Strongman. Generally speaking, Canney wasn’t on his ‘Pat Malone’ there.
However, it was a completely different story when the spinners were on, and Norths did have some very fine spinners in Graeme Smith and Graham Read.
Ian Canney had sublime footwork to spin bowling of any kind, so it was no surprise to learn that on February 1, 1968, the tall right-handed ‘John Newcombe’ lookalike, playing for the Southern NSW XI against the touring Indians, peeled of a magnificent unbeaten century at Manuka Oval.
In severe heat, watched by a reported 2,000 spectators, Canney took full toll of a typical Manuka batting pitch and a lightning-fast outfield, to punish a near Test bowling lineup, which included the great Bishan Bedi. Canney stroked 15 fours to run the Indians ragged in the dry Canberra heat.
On reaching his century, the Southern XI captain, Kevin McCarty, retired Canney and after his departure, the locals batting fell away.
Remarkably, Canney’s unbeaten 101 which took only 128 minutes, was his first century in either First grade or representative cricket.
The star-studded Indian batting lineup chased down the local team’s total with five wickets in hand, but, the talking point for many years was Ian Canney’s batting on that hot Thursday in February 1968.