The 76-year-old leprechaun sprang from the pepper tree and stood there: the
little spin bowling champion, Clarrie Grimmett.
I had taken a train from Perth to Adelaide, where Clarrie had a turf pitch in his suburban backyard. From the time I was six, my ambition was to play big cricket. The day I met Mr Grimmett, I was 21, and I sensed my chances of playing Test cricket were fading. As the WA State Squad offspinner, I rarely got a bag of wickets for my club, Mt Lawley. Maybe I was a "good bowler out of luck".
Eventually I decided that something was wrong. No one has that much bad luck.
Grimmett's record was amazing: 216 wickets in 37 Tests, 127 bags of five wickets or more in 248 first-class matches. If you equate five wickets with a century, then his bowling record is better than Don Bradman's batting record (117 centuries in 234 matches).
This man knew a thing or two about bowling. We shook hands and he handed me a Jack Hobbs bat. "But I'm here to learn about bowling," I whispered in mock protest.
"Well," he smiled, "I taught a young man to play the late cut on the ship to England in 1930… and Don Bradman was a fast learner!"
He had a ball in a stocking, hanging from a branch of the pepper tree. I played one defensive prod. "Okay," he said," I've had enough of your batting."
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Now to bowl.
Clarrie wore street clothes; no pads, gloves or box. He adjusted his glasses, took up his stance and I spun one down.
He met the ball with the full face of his Jack Hobbs bat.
He called me to his side: "Give up bowling and become a batsman." He added insult to injury with, "I could play you blindfolded."
I found a handkerchief and he put it over his horn-rimmed glasses. My second ball met the middle of his bat, and when he stopped laughing he gave me the best lesson of my cricketing life.