Where are they now? Former Black Cap Gavin Larsen
Gavin Larsen had quite the career. He tells Brendon Egan how he got his nickname, why going on to social media was a mistake and how much he thinks you’d pay for his book now.
Amember of the Black Caps’ ‘Dibbly-dobbly, wibbly-wobbly’ bowling group in the 1990s, Larsen was miserly with the ball in his 121 ODIs, also playing eight tests. He was also chief executive of Cricket Wellington, national selector during the Black Caps’ greatest era, and now works for English county, Warwickshire.
Who gave you your iconic ‘The Postman’ nickname?
There’s a bit of a story attached to that. In 1996 we had a tour to the West Indies and were playing at Jamaica at Sabina Park. There was a little part of that ground then and they called it The Mound. It was where the real locals gathered. You’d be down at fine leg in front of The Mound and there’d be a certain pungent smell that would be wafting through the air.
I was playing okay and I heard a West Indian fan with a really strong accent behind me, ‘Hey Postie, Hey Postie’. I turned around with a quizzical look. ‘Hey Postie, you always deliver’. There were a few of them that jumped on the bandwagon and whenever I went and fielded in front of The Mound it became ‘Postie’. The boys picked up on it and the rest was history from there.
You wrote a cricket book, called ‘Grand Larseny’. How much fun was that to do?
You’d probably get it for 99 cents in a bargain bin now. It was good. It was light and fluffy. I got asked before the 1999 World Cup in England would I like to do a diary. That was the topical thing at the time, doing tour diaries. I said I’ll give it a crack. It was really enjoyable, just scribbling a few notes each day, then flicking them off back home and gathering photos. It was a little bit of fun, but very light and fluffy.
After seven years as Black Caps national selector you left last year to become Warwickshire’s performance director. How’s the new gig going?
What I’ve found since I’ve been here is Warwickshire is a very big club. There’s real scale. There’s expectations around the first team delivering performance on the park. They’re great community citizens. They do things the right way. They have very strong links to the local community.
We’ve got a great pathway programme, which is our county age-group programme for boys and girls. It’s very diverse and it’s really opened my eyes up in terms of that, how important that piece of work is. The big picture is it’s a well governed and well led club. I’m really enjoying the connection at the top of the pyramid.
You played in three Cricket World Cups (1992, 1996, 1999), and spent a decade with the Black Caps. What sticks out about those special days?
I don’t want to downplay what I did manage to achieve, but really mate I was a little medium pacer from Onslow Cricket Club [in Wellington], who had an ability to
put the ball there or thereabouts. Now, you do look back and reflect and go ‘Holy, how did I manage to pump out 120-odd ODIs over a 10 year period?’. I was obviously doing a few things right.
It’s nice to look back and reflect. It’s also helped me in terms of post-cricket as well. At the end of the day if I didn’t have my playing career I wouldn’t be here at Warwickshire now.
The 1992 Cricket World Cup semifinal loss to Pakistan at Eden Park was your toughest defeat. What could New Zealand have done differently in retrospect?
Martin [Crowe] could have done something different and not torn his hamstring. That’s the No 1 vivid memory I have. I’ll remain convinced until the day I’m not here that we had a good chance of winning that World Cup. We had a really good game plan, we had a team that was confident, and expressing themselves in their own way in terms of their roles. Martin, he was the conductor of the orchestra, he moved the chess pieces
around the board really, really well.
I’m not having a crack at Wrighty [John Wright] here, who took over the reins in that game, but things did change in that second innings – tactically what we’d been doing so very, very well through the tournament. It was a contributing factor. I still find in my mind if Hogan [Crowe] was there right through that match, we would have nailed that and been headed to Melbourne and the bright lights of the final.
You were Black Caps selector for seven years. How much did you hear the outside noise from fans and media?
I probably made that fatal mistake in my first year of jumping on Facebook and Twitter and feeling a lot of that emotion from the fan base. It didn’t take me long to realise I’d probably break if I was spending all my time on Facebook looking at comments, so that was the end of that.
I love the passion involved in sport. Being a selector, it comes with the territory that the media has a perspective, the fan base has a perspective. At the end of the day, selectors have to make decisions and all you can do is try to make the most informed decisions you can in terms of what the game plan is, how you’re trying to set squads, how you’re trying to win a World Cup or an ICC major event, and then you stay dear to your selection philosophy.
Who were the most challenging batters to test yourself against as a bowler?
Sachin [Tendulkar] No 1, Brian Charles [Lara] No 2. It seemed like there at one stage we had a tour into India almost every year and Sachin was in his pomp at that stage. He’s got the widest legal bat in the history of the game I think and it felt like you were always bowling the ball into the middle of the bat. Serious player and that was a real privilege to bowl to him.
Brian Charles was just different again, just mercurial. His shot making was unbelievable and that West Indies tour of 1996 he was playing some really good cricket then. I managed to get him out a couple of times so that’s something I can tell the grandkids in due course.
You had an economy rate of just 3.76 in 121 ODIs. Why were you so difficult to score off?
The style of play back then was probably the key. Teams would look to exploit somewhat in the first 15 overs in the power play, then the middle stages through my period it really truly was an accumulation phase. I was very lucky because I had guys like Chris Harris and Willie Watson, albeit he doesn’t like to be called one of the dibbly, dobbly, wobblies.
We managed to tie innings up more often than not. There must have been some sort of ability for me to be putting a ball there or thereabouts on a regular basis.
What certainly happened back then was you didn’t need the full box of tricks modern day white ball bowlers need now. I had a slower ball, a bit of an off cutter. You never really had to pull out a bouncer.