CRICKET MOUNTAIN TIME

Q AI grew up in the backyard on the farm and my brother Warren was a very keen cricketer and he needed someone to bowl at. There was an eight-year difference between us so I was always the fieldsman and the bowler for a long time and he taught me, I think the passion for it rubbed off on me. I continued it because I really did enjoy it. We had a farm at Bartle-Frere, just south of Babinda, so it was very much a backyard thing.

Q AWhere did you discover your love for the game as a young fella? Backyards appear to be getting ever smaller. Do you think that hurts the future of cricket?

Very much so in a sense they’re smaller blocks and even in Cairns my grandkids like to come out here because we they seem to have a bit more space here than where they live and the game of backyard cricket taught you a lot of skills and if you read back in history, the Chappell brothers played backyard cricket the same as the Langer brothers played rugby league in the backyard so that’s where we learnt the game. We had a lot of space on a cane farm, you know, in our yard, so we mowed the pitch before we ever mowed the yard for dad because we wanted to have a game of cricket, so that’s a very real factor at the moment. Certain trees were four and if you hit something on the full you were out and there were all these rules you made up as you went along. There was less things for kids to do then as well so you had to occupy your time a great deal more and as a result you played cricket and football in the yard.