Historic win remembered
Their differences were as stark as their similarities striking. A well-flighted, considered and steady left-armer and a quickas-a-flash, attacking off-spinner.
They are Bryan Yuile and Victor Pollard, New Zealand’s spin twins of 1967.
Both were products of Palmerston North Boys’ High School, where they were both the sporting dux of their year. Both were Christians, not keen on Sunday play, and both were genuine all-rounders, who turned out for Old Boys cricket club.
Fifty years ago this month, both bowled the New Zealand cricket team to a memorable and significant win against Australia. Three draws followed, giving the Kiwis a series victory.
The win, at New Plymouth’s picturesque Pukekura Park, has largely faded from memory and is absent from cricket folklore. Any compendium of great New Zealand cricket moments won’t include this game – because it wasn’t a test.
For almost 30 years after the baggy greens thrashed New Zealand in one of the most onesided games of all time in 1946, Australia didn’t deem New Zealand good enough to play against at test level. Our friends across the ditch sent ‘‘B’’ teams to these shores.
So, New Zealand had a point to prove.
Here today, there tomorrow
As they wound their way through New Zealand, the Australians stopped at Palmerston North, where they had the better of a match against Central Districts.
On a Fitzherbert Park ‘‘road’’, Pollard and Yuile were ineffective against a methodical Australian outfit that declared on 499, with Brian Booth scoring a double century.
Central stuck it out and the match was drawn. Next day, the first international began in New Plymouth, a four-dayer moved from Wellington while the Basin Reserve was dug up.
Good crowds filled the Pukekura Park banks and fuzzy black and white images of the match were beamed around the bottom of the North Island on WNTV2.
New Zealand batted first and found their way to 278, thanks mainly to the 111-run partnership between Yuile, who scored 38, and Bruce Taylor, who smashed his way to 92.
Taylor was lucky, as he so often was, earning the nickname ‘‘haystack’’. That’s because if he fell from an aeroplane, he would land in one.
‘‘It was an interesting game. I didn’t think of it at the time, but historically it became a crucial game to do with our relationship with Australia,’’ Yuile said.
‘‘Up until then, the Australians didn’t play us in test matches, because they didn’t think we were strong enough.’’
Yuile, 75, says he wasn’t thinking much at the time about the politics of it all, rather he and the side, captained by Wellingtonian Barry Sinclair, were enjoying playing quality opposition.
‘‘I understood later on, when I talked to others who were administrators, they said the fact that we won that game and then drew the other three, evidently, was quite significant because it demonstrated to the Australians that we had some strength.’’
Pollard, who now lives in Christchurch, says there wasn’t a strong sense of proving a point against this ‘‘B’’ side.
‘‘At that stage we were just glad to play an international. It was an honour to play guys of that quality.’’
He doesn’t remember the match in micro-detail, but definitely recalls the win and, crucially, how the pitch offered him and Yuile assistance.
‘‘It shows the change of fortune,’’ Pollard , 71, says of the contrasting performances of him and Yuile, neither of whom were threatening in the lead-up match.
‘‘The track was very different. Palmerston North was very flat.
‘‘Then we had the test match. Pukekura favoured spin and the Aussies don’t play off-spin, historically, very well.’’
Spin twins strike
New Zealand rolled Australia in their first innings for 175 early on day three, after the Sunday was a rest day.
Yuile took 5-62 off 34 overs and Pollard 4-26 off 31. The pair bowled 33 maidens.
Nestled in the Manawatu Standard, between news of Palmerston North’s population ticking over the 50,000 mark and ads about the 24-hour classifieds service, were match reports eagerly recording the exploits of the ‘‘spin twins’’ who ‘‘found magic in the turf to send the Australian batsmen reeling’’.
‘‘Yuile and Pollard, in devastating form, extracted too much quick spin and only B Booth had the technique or patience required.’’
The writer lauded Yuile’s accuracy and Pollard’s aggression with the ball.
‘‘I was aggressive in my nature, impatient, fiercely competitive,’’ says Pollard, who also played football for New Zealand.
‘‘I was not a natural off-spinner. I bowled at a slightly quicker pace and I could spin it a bit on these tracks. I wasn’t so effective on those tracks where it didn’t spin.’’
On day three, New Zealand declared their second innings at 247-8. Pollard scored 54.
This left Australia 351 runs to make in little over a day. They never got near, succumbing for
191, but lasting more than 100 overs.
A steady Yuile took 2-57 off 35, while Pollard was the star, grabbing 7-65 off 37 overs.
‘‘The Aussie are proud. The weren’t out to get beaten,’’ Pollard says.
Holding on
The pair’s good form continued in the next two internationals as the series was disrupted by rain.
The Standard found room after the New Plymouth win to welcome the stars home under a headline ‘‘Palmerston North salutes Pollard and Yuile’’. The pair batted, bowled and fielded with ‘‘judgment, skill and distinction’’, the paper said.
Yuile says he was surprised at the Australian’s inability to play his and Pollard’s offerings and recalls his and the team’s delight at their win. There hadn’t been many for New Zealand at that stage – just three test wins in 37 years.
‘‘Victor Pollard was just all over them, really. Vic was an extraordinarily gifted player in a lot of respects.
‘‘We had a bunch of fellows who tried hard, really. There was a lot of energy that went into it,’’ Yuile says.
‘‘Victor was a very aggressive player, very competitive. He did everything at 100 miles per hour. He would have liked to have been a fast bowler. He had that temperament. He liked to attack.
‘‘I’d float it a bit more. I wasn’t that slow through the air. I’d bowl slow enough to make them think they could come towards me.’’
Pollard was a young star on the cricket scene.
Called up for a New Zealand tour of India, Pakistan and England in 1965, aged 19, he went on to captain Central Districts soon after.
Yuile remembers him as a strong leader, who would expect high standards and field in close as the left-armer tied batsmen up.
Pollard says he was called ‘‘thunder brows’’, as he glowered over the on-field efforts of a Central side that went so close to winning three Plunket Shields in a row.
Yuile played a big role in that success, wheeling away for over after over, spinning the ball just enough from his ‘‘stubby little fingers’’.
‘‘He was accurate. The game’s different today. Guys might pick us up over the top now. Yuiley would bowl 30 overs and take 4 for 50.’’
Yuile drifted out of top cricket in the early 1970s and became a social worker. Pollard played for New Zealand for longer, starred with the bat on a tour of England in 1973, but played his last game two years later.
Finally, in 1973, Australia invited New Zealand over there for a full test tour.
Pollard and Yuile remain firm friends, catching up only a few weeks ago when Pollard and his wife called into Gisborne aboard a cruise ship taking them around New Zealand and to Australia.
The spin twins were back together.