by Mayukh Ghosh
Adelaide Oval, 1961.
Australia 7/281, in their reply to West Indies' 393.
Frank Misson walks in to bat as Lance Gibbs is all set to bowl the hat-trick ball.
Fielders crowd the tail-ender.
Misson thinks Gibbs will toss the ball up to get a bat-pad.
But Gibbs bowls the quick yorker.
Through Misson's defenses even before he could bring his bat down.
Hat-trick.
"Did me like a dinner. I have seen Lance a few times since and he always slaps me on the back and says: "Thanks Frank."", Misson later recalled.
Lord's, 1961.
Australia 8/238, in their reply to England's 206.
Graham McKenzie joins 'Slasher' Mackay in the middle.
The friendly spin of Ray Illingworth suits their game and they add a crucial 53 runs before Trueman dismisses McKenzie.
Enter Frank Misson.
Colin Cowdrey keeps his fast bowlers on.
Mackay, for a few overs, tries to guard Misson.
Then, finding that his defense is decent, lets him bat against the fast bowlers.
Australia add another 49. Misson remains undefeated on 25.
An innings that helps his team win a memorable Test match.
Misson begins to believe that things are finally getting sorted for him.
Moreover, as he visits Gray-Nicolls to choose some equipment, he meets Carol Reben, his future wife.
1950: A 11-year boy in Sydney watches Ray Lindwall bowl.
That wonderful run-up and delivery.
Helps this boy decide that he must become a fast bowler.
Six years later, he watches the Olympics in Melbourne.
And decides that he must become an athlete.
The very next year he treks to Portsea to train with legendary coach Percy Cerutty.
Cerutty's odd techniques attracts him and brings in him an acute consciousness of fitness.
Four-mile runs every morning.
An experimental vegetarian diet with plenty of nuts, fruits and honey.
A year later he plays first-class cricket.
"I didn't have the natural ability of other bowlers. But I thought it would be in my favour if I was at least standing at the end of the day.", he later recalled.
The obsession with fitness irritates team-mates but Misson is on a mission.
No late nights. His roommates struggle to sleep when Misson's juice extractor mulch carrots early in the morning.
But the 1961 tour does not end well for him.
During a match he rushes to the field of play to replace someone and immediately chases a ball to the boundary.
He hobbles off with a pulled calf muscle.
"Hot bath for you. Stay there for an hour.", instructs Artie James, the Tasmanian masseur who has accompanied Australia in their Ashes tours since 1930.
A couple of days later the bruise and bleeding comes out and it becomes evident that James' treatment was wrong.
The fitness freak is out of the team due to lack of fitness.
End of Test career.
He went on to play Sheffield Shield for a few more years but Frank Misson's is a story of 'what could have been'.
A career in which he represented Australia only five times and that too almost 60 years ago.
Not surprising that he is largely forgotten.
Frank Misson was born on November 19, 1938.