by Mayukh Ghosh
" You want to pack it in now. Have a nice not out.", chuckled Keith Miller.
"Rubbish", came the reply, in a flash.
February 1951.
Melbourne.
Freddie Brown and Alec Bedser take five-fors to dismiss Australia for a paltry 217.
Then, after a cautious 79 from Len Hutton, England find themselves in trouble.
246/9.
Roy Tattersall joins Reg Simpson in the middle.
Simpson on 92.
And he doesn't pay attention to Miller's suggestion.
Miller and Lindwall.
Much feared, as always.
Along with them, Jack Iverson, the mystery spinner.
Australia were already 4-0 up.
A whitewash, much like 30 years earlier, was on the cards.
Simpson and Tattersall add 74 in 50 minutes.
Tattersall scores 10 of them.
The 'nice not out' happens but after Simpson scores 156.
Jack Fingleton is impressed and so are many other experts present in the MCG.
"One of the greatest stroke-players I have seen.", writes Fingleton.
Simpson was a terrible player of spin until he manages to have a chat with Jack Crapp.
Crapp mentions how the great Wally Hammond used to play spin.
"He didn't watch the hand. He concentrated on the flight, direction and length of the ball, and he'd see it spinning. And if he couldn't see it, wherever it pitched, he'd play for it to hit his wickets."
Simpson, till then, had struggled against Jack Walsh.
Applying Hammond's method, he scored two centuries against him.
It took him some time but he found a way to tackle Iverson.
"In the last Test I went outside leg stick a bit to fox him."
He had no such problems against fast bowling.
As a teenager he saw how Frank Shipston nullified the pace of Bill Voce.
"Go back and across and then wait for the ball."
Twenty five years after this Test match, Simpson's technique helped Dennis Amiss end his miserable run against the West Indian quicks.
That 156 is one of the most important knocks in the history of English cricket.
It marked the beginning of an era.
It marked the beginning of a decade which England dominated.
They won the next three Ashes series.
Simpson's career never quite took off.
He modelled his batting on Dullepsinhji's and when he hit Athol Rowan for a six over his head, Len Hutton told him: "This is a Test match, you know."
That was pretty much it.
One of the greats of Nottinghamshire cricket never had the same success at the Test level.
But he did enjoy his cricket and had a jolly good time while he was out there in the middle.
When Dennis Amiss asked what to do if the ball was pitched up, Simpson said: "Well, Dennis, if it's pitched up from a fast bowler, once you see it in the air, you can close your eyes and hit it."
Reg Simpson was born on February 27, 1920