by Arunabha Sengupta
1938. Don Bradman’s Australians left for England on board the Ontores. A black and white photograph captured the waving cricketers as they sailed away. An elderly gentleman in Lisarow, Gosford, showed this picture to his nine-year-old grandson. The young boy, a healthy farm lad, said, “One day, grand-dad, I am going to do it.”
Twenty-three years later, another ship, the Himalaya, carrying the Australian cricketers to England was sailing near Cairo. On board was the inimitable Brian Johnston, filming for BBC Television.
In a chat with the Australian captain Richie Benaud, the ace commentator mentioned that England had the edge due to the relentless accuracy of Brian Statham.
Benaud responded, “I’ve got a bloke just as good as that.” The skipper summoned our boy of 1938, now a full grown man and established Australian cricketer, to bowl on the deck, wearing a pair of sandals and swimming trunks.
Three stumps were set up and Benaud asked him to knock over the off, leg and middle in that order. Alan Davidson did exactly that, off a run-up much shorter than his usual 15 paces, turning his left-arm around and generating eye popping speed. It achieved the near impossible of keeping Johnston quiet for a while.
Of course, Davidson was fresh from 33 wickets in 4 Tests during that sublime series against Frank Worrell’s West Indians. For good measure he had scored 212 runs at an average of 30.28 in the Tests.
In the greatest Test of all, the epoch-making Brisbane Tie, he had captured 11 wickets, scored 44 in the first innings and taken Australia to the brink of victory before being run out for a magnificent 80 in the second. The first player in the history of Test cricket to score more than hundred runs and take more than 10 wickets in the same match.
There was no Man of the Match those days, but Davidson would have won it for the Tied Test. ‘The Magnificent Davidson’ was how Garry Sobers described him. He would have been a leading contender for the Man of the Series as well.
He bowled with glorious fluency and rhythm, 15 paces, not one of them wasted. Fifteen Paces became the name of his autobiography. A perfect bowling action, ability to make the ball move in different directions at disconcerting pace. He was deadly on helpful tracks and could take wickets on the most placid ones, such as when he bowled Australia to victory in the Sydney Test of 1962-63.
With the bat, the deceptive power of his drives in the cover to mid-off arc made him destructive. Sometimes with devastating effect, just like the time he turned the Manchester Test around in 1961 from a hopeless position.
And in the field, he did not saunter at fine leg like the modern fast bowler. He crouched close in and could pluck out impossible balls out of the air. When in the outfield he was the quickest off the mark, with miraculous speed over the first few yards, moving into furious and long striding chases that were a joy to behold, and ‘threw like a lion’. It was Keith Miller who gave him the nickname ‘Claw’, when he dived from the second slip to pluck a catch off his boot even as Miller was on his way down from the first slip. Legend has it that as a boy on the farm, Davidson used to throw green oranges as high as he could before running after them and catching them. If the orange hit the ground it would have squished and burst. Secret to being a superlative catcher.
186 wickets at 20.53. No one has taken more than 100 wickets at a lesser cost since then, no paceman has done it since the Great War, and only SF Barnes, Charlie Turner and George Lohmann before that. Plus 1328 runs and 42 catches in his 44 Tests.
Alan Davidson was one of the greatest ever. He passed away on 30 October 2021.