Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | Salisbury, South Australia | 30 September 1952|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Right-arm fast | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1974/75–1984/85 | South Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source:CricketArchive,29 June 2014 |
Wayne Prior (born 30 September 1952) is a former South Australian cricketer. He never played in the official Australian team,but did play for Australia in World Series Cricket.
Born in Salisbury,South Australia,Prior played cricket and Australian rules football as a junior before developing into a tall,rangy right-arm fast bowler,who,on his day,was one of the fastest in Australia.
Prior made his first-class debut for South Australia on 1 November 1974 against the touring MCC team at Adelaide Oval,taking 1/60 and 0/18.
After a moderately successful debut season,Prior became one of the stand out performers of the 1975–76 Australian cricket season,taking 43 wickets at 19.67,including 6/41 against the touring West Indian team and match figures of 10/168 against New South Wales,including a hat trick. Prior's bowling was a key element in South Australia winning the Sheffield Shield and led to media speculation that he would be included in the Australian Test side against the West Indies. While the large pool of talented fast bowlers available in Australia kept Prior out of the Test team,former English fast bowler Frank Tyson was sufficiently impressed by his performances to confidentially predict that Prior would be a future mainstay of the Australian side. [1]
Prior spent the 1976 English cricket season playing English club cricket,as well as stints for the Kent Second XI and DH Robins' XI. His 1976-77 season for South Australia was disappointing in comparison to his previous season,realising only 17 wickets at 43.00,but Prior was still considered as a future Test player. His problem,common to many cricketers of his era,was monetary. With cricket providing little financial compensation,Prior was required to work to earn a living,doing so as a casual labourer with a suburban Adelaide council until South Australian Cricket Association officials organised work for him with an Adelaide car dealer. [2]
Prior's financial situation was still precarious however,and so when he was offered a significant contract to join the new World Series Cricket (WSC) competition (as well as the opportunity to again play under his former captain at South Australia,Ian Chappell),Prior jumped at the opportunity.
Prior played two WSC Super Tests,both in 1977-78 taking two wickets at 116.00.
He played in eight WSC International Cup matches,taking four wickets at 54.00. While Prior's bowling statistics were poor,teammates were impressed with his attitude and his pace,once breaking Kepler Wessels' ribs in a country match. [3]
Following the end of World Series Cricket,Prior returned to South Australia for the 1979-80 season,taking 26 wickets at 41.53. He also bought a farm in Lobethal,South Australia with the proceeds of his WSC payments,and his ensuing farm duties led to his unavailability for some matches.
Prior missed most of the 1981-82 season (when South Australia won the Sheffield Shield) due to a mixture of farm commitments and a suspension arising from disputing an umpire's decision in an Adelaide grade match. [2]
At his retirement at the end of the 1984/85 season,Prior had played 48 first-class matches for 140 wickets at 33.07. [4] Referred to as "a placid,easy-going character until he gets a ball in his hand and sees a batsman at the other end",Prior was usually known by his nickname "Fang". [2] After losing his front teeth in an Australian rules football match,Prior wore dentures,which he then lost while surfing,leading South Australian teammate Terry Jenner to name him "Fang. [5]
Some cricket writers have named Prior amongst the most unlucky players not to have played for Australia. David Hookes,Prior's captain at South Australia,was one who believed Prior should have played Test cricket,calling him "a genuine fast and away-swing bowler",and noting that Prior often troubled West Indian champion Viv Richards more than any of his Australian fast bowling counterparts. [6]
Ian Michael Chappell is a former cricketer who played for South Australia and Australia. He captained Australia between 1971 and 1975 before taking a central role in the breakaway World Series Cricket organisation. Born into a cricketing family—his grandfather and brother also captained Australia—Chappell made a hesitant start to international cricket playing as a right-hand middle-order batsman and spin bowler. He found his niche when promoted to bat at number three. Known as "Chappelli", he earned a reputation as one of the greatest captains the game has seen. Chappell's blunt verbal manner led to a series of confrontations with opposition players and cricket administrators; the issue of sledging first arose during his tenure as captain, and he was a driving force behind the professionalisation of Australian cricket in the 1970s.
Gregory Stephen Chappell is a former cricketer who represented Australia at international level in both Tests and One-Day Internationals (ODI). The second of three brothers to play Test cricket, Chappell was the pre-eminent Australian batsman of his time who allied elegant stroke making to fierce concentration. An exceptional all round player who bowled medium pace and, at his retirement, held the world record for the most catches in Test cricket, Chappell's career straddled two eras as the game moved toward a greater level of professionalism after the WSC schism.
Trevor Martin Chappell is a former Australian cricketer, a member of the South Australian Chappell family which excelled at cricket. He played 3 tests and 20 One Day Internationals for Australia. He won the Sheffield Shield with New South Wales twice, and scored a century for Australia against India in the 1983 World Cup. His career was overshadowed, however, by an incident in 1981 in which he bowled an underarm delivery to New Zealand cricketer Brian McKechnie to prevent the batsman from hitting a six.
Dennis Keith Lillee, is a retired Australian cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation". Lillee formed a new ball partnership with Jeff Thomson which is recognised as one of the greatest bowling pairs of all time.
Shaun "The Wild Thing" Tait is a former Australian professional cricketer who was appointed as the bowling coach of the Pakistan national cricket team in February 2022. He played as a right arm fast bowler and represented Australia in all three forms of cricket, but had most success in One Day Internationals, in which he was a member of Australia's undefeated team at the 2007 Cricket World Cup, and Twenty20 cricket. Tait won four different awards throughout his career including the Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year in 2004. He is considered one of the fastest bowlers of all time. Tait was a member of the Australian team that won the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
Nathan Wade Bracken is a former Australian cricketer. A tall left-arm fast-medium bowler, Bracken is capable of swinging the ball both ways. He has represented Australia in all forms of the game. Bracken represented New South Wales in Australian domestic cricket, Eastern Suburbs in Sydney Grade Cricket and also appeared for English County team Gloucestershire in 2004. On 28 January 2011 he announced his retirement from the game due to a chronic knee injury. On 9 February 2012 it was reported that he sued Cricket Australia over the latter's alleged incompetency in managing his knee injury. With his time representing Australia, Bracken won multiple ICC titles with the team: the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the 2007 Cricket World Cup, and the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy.
Jeffrey Robert Thomson is a former Australian cricketer. Known as "Thommo", he is one of the fastest bowlers in the history of cricket; he bowled a delivery with a speed of 160.6 km/h against the West Indies in Perth in 1975, which was the fastest recorded delivery at the time, and the fourth-fastest recorded delivery of all time.
William Arras Johnston was an Australian cricketer who played in forty Test matches from 1947 to 1955. A left arm pace bowler, as well as a left arm orthodox spinner, Johnston was best known as a spearhead of Don Bradman's undefeated 1948 touring team, well known as "The Invincibles". Johnston headed the wicket-taking lists in both Test and first-class matches on the tour, and was the last Australian to take over 100 wickets on a tour of England. In recognition of his performances, he was named by Wisden as one of its Cricketers of the Year in 1949. The publication stated that "no Australian made a greater personal contribution to the playing success of the 1948 side". Regarded by Bradman as Australia's greatest-ever left-arm bowler, Johnston was noted for his endurance in bowling pace with the new ball and spin when the ball had worn. He became the fastest bowler to reach 100 Test wickets in 1951–52, at the time averaging less than nineteen with the ball. By the end of the season, he had played 24 Tests and contributed 111 wickets. Australia won nineteen and lost only two of these Tests. In 1953, a knee injury forced him to remodel his bowling action, and he became less effective before retiring after aggravating the injury in 1955. In retirement, he worked in sales and marketing, and later ran his own businesses. He had two sons, one of whom became a cricket administrator. Johnston died at the age of 85 on 25 May 2007.
Raymond Russell Lindwall was an Australian cricketer who represented Australia in 61 Tests from 1946 to 1960. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. He also played top-flight rugby league football with St. George, appearing in two grand finals for the club before retiring to fully concentrate on Test cricket.
Ian William Geddes Johnson, was an Australian cricketer who played 45 Test matches as a slow off-break bowler between 1946 and 1956. Johnson captured 109 Test wickets at an average of 29.19 runs per wicket and as a capable lower order batsman made 1,000 runs at an average of 18.51 runs per dismissal. He captained the Australian team in 17 Tests, winning seven and losing five, with a further five drawn. Despite this record, he is better known as the captain who lost consecutive Ashes series against England. Urbane, well-spoken and popular with his opponents and the public, he was seen by his teammates as a disciplinarian and his natural optimism was often seen as naive.
Frank Holmes Tyson was an England international cricketer of the 1950s, who also worked as a schoolmaster, journalist, cricket coach and cricket commentator after emigrating to Australia in 1960. Nicknamed "Typhoon Tyson" by the press, he was regarded by many commentators as one of the fastest bowlers ever seen in cricket and took 76 wickets at an average of 18.56 in 17 Test matches.
Ian Ritchie Redpath is an Australian former international cricketer who played in 66 Test matches and five One Day Internationals between 1964 and 1976. Greg Chappell said he was one of only two players he knew who would kill to get into the Australian Test team, the other being Rod Marsh.
Graham Douglas McKenzie – commonly known as "Garth", after the comic strip hero – is an Australian cricketer who played for Western Australia (1960–74), Leicestershire (1969–75), Transvaal (1979–80) and Australia (1961–71) and was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1965. He succeeded Alan Davidson as Australia's premier fast bowler and was in turn succeeded by Dennis Lillee, playing with both at either end of his career. McKenzie was particularly noted for his muscular physique and ability to take wickets on good batting tracks. His father Eric McKenzie and uncle Douglas McKenzie played cricket for Western Australia. Garth was chosen for the Ashes tour of England in 1961 aged only 20. He made his debut in the Second Test at Lord's, where his 5/37 wrapped up the England innings to give Australia a 5-wicket victory.
Bruce Malcolm Laird is a former Western Australian and Australian cricketer. He was an opening batsmen who played in 21 Test matches and 23 One Day Internationals. He also played 13 "Supertests" in World Series Cricket.
Len Hutton captained the English cricket team in Australia in 1954–55, playing as England against Australia in the 1954–55 Ashes series and as the MCC in other matches on the tour. It was the first time that an England team had toured Australia under a professional captain since the 1880s. After losing the First Test by an innings, they beat Australia 3–1 and retained the Ashes. The combination of Frank Tyson, Brian Statham, Trevor Bailey, Johnny Wardle and Bob Appleyard made it one of the strongest bowling sides to tour Australia, and it was the only team of any nationality to defeat Australia at home between 1932–33 and 1970–71.
Mike Denness captained the English cricket team in Australia in 1974–75, playing as England in the 1974-75 Ashes series against the Australians and as the MCC in their other matches on the tour. They lost the Test series and the Ashes 4–1 thanks to the battering they received from the fast bowling of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, but won the One Day International and with Lillee and Thomson injured they came back to win the Sixth Test by an innings.
Peter Matthew Siddle is an Australian cricketer. He is a specialist right-arm fast-medium bowler who currently plays for Victoria in first-class and List A cricket, and for Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League. He has played Test cricket for Australia over an eight-year period from 2008 to 2016, before being recalled for the Test series against Pakistan in 2018. Peter Siddle retired from International cricket in December 2019. During his time with Australia, Siddle won the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy.
Geoffrey Robert Attenborough is a former South Australian cricketer who is considered unlucky by some judges to not have played for Australia.
The 1954–55 Ashes series consisted of five cricket Test matches, each of six days with five hours play each day and eight ball overs. It formed part of the MCC tour of Australia in 1954–55 and the matches outside the Tests were played in the name of the Marylebone Cricket Club. The England team was captained by Len Hutton, the first professional cricketer to lead an MCC tour of Australia. The Australian team under Ian Johnson was confident of victory, but despite losing the First Test by an innings England won the series 3–1 and retained the Ashes. They were the only touring team to win a series in Australia between 1932–33 and 1970–71 and only the second of three touring teams to win a series in Australia from behind. The tour is best remembered for the bowling of Frank "Typhoon" Tyson, who was at the time regarded as the fastest, most frightening bowler ever seen in Australia. The series saw a phenomenal concentration of bowling prowess on both sides – four of the bowlers had career Test averages under 21, another five under 25 and the remaining four under 30. Unsurprisingly therefore, the ball dominated the bat for most of the series and each side only topped 300 in an innings twice. Unlike the following series in 1958–59 there were rarely any umpiring disputes and Keith Miller wrote "Mel McInnes, Colin Hoy and Ron Wright were our leading umpires in the 1954–55 M.C.C. tour of Australia, and I have no hesitation in saying that McInnes gave the finest exhibition of umpiring in a Test series that I have experienced".
The 1974–75 Ashes series consisted of six cricket Test matches, each match lasted five days with six hours of play each day and eight ball overs. It formed part of the MCC tour of Australia in 1974–75 and the matches outside the Tests were played in the name of the Marylebone Cricket Club. Ian Chappell's Australians won the series 4–1 and "brutally and unceremoniously wrenched the Ashes" from Mike Denness's England team. It was Australia's first series victory over England for ten years and the experience proved popular as 777,563 spectators came through the gates and paid nearly a million Australian dollars for the privilege. For the first time the first day of the Third Test at Melbourne was held on Boxing Day in an Ashes series, now a cricketing tradition.