Sadness at lack of reunion

IAN Healy believes cricket has let a potentially precious moment slip by failing to have a 30-year reunion of Australia’s iconic 1989 Ashes team.

Champion keeper Healy and fellow ’89 tourists Allan Border and Carl Rackemann will reminisce about the tour on stage on Thursday at Queensland Cricket’s season launch, but there will be no formal reunion of the tide-turning team which battered England 4-0.

Healy said the symmetry between the 1989 team and the current squad which retained the Ashes was enhanced by the fact the destination of the urn was clinched at Old Trafford.

Healy was at Old Trafford for both celebrations, in 1989 as a player and recently as a television commentator, but sensed the occasion could have been a magical one for the game had his old squad mates been there as well.

“Imagine what it would have been like with the squads mixing,’’ Healy said.

“[Current selection chairman and ’89 tourist] Trevor Hohns got his suit drenched in the celebration when he walked in the dressing room this time in the same place that it happened in ’89. “It could have been unbelievable. It’s really disappointing there is no union of the ’89 team.

“There were about three or four options talked about but in the end they came to nothing.

“With the amount of money that has flowed into the game these days I think something could have been done.

“It’s disappointing because that ’89 tour was one of the big moments in Ashes history.’’

The 1989 Ashes team was the first Australian side to regain the Ashes on English soil since Bill Woodfull’s side did so in 1934, and pointed Australia into an era of domination over England which lasted until 2005. re