Don Neely's life in cricket observed
True to the Spirit of Cricket by Bill Francis. Published by The Cricket Publishing Company, Sydney, 2024.
Don Neely, the subject of this biography, perfectly encapsulated the book's title.
He was a man of the game and one who represented all the best virtues that cricket has contributed to sport and society in general.
Naturally a player of the game, he was a good first-class player who didn't trouble the national selectors but was a good enough captain to lead his home province, Wellington. While he wasn't required to take charge of the side from his temporary home, Auckland, his maturity and experience were an asset.
With Auckland, he became a member of the group that has been involved in winning Plunket Shield campaigns for two sides. He finished his career in Auckland with 1301 first-class runs at 28.91, including one century, before returning to Wellington.
Moving into selection, he helped bridge the gap from the painful amateur era, which was changing as the game headed into the upheaval that would occur worldwide during the 1970s, to the professional era. Yet, the spirit of cricket's common characteristics were essential to him under whatever concept was in place.
Joining the national panel alongside convener Frank Cameron, Graham Dowling, and the team captain for the 1979-80 season, Mark Burgess, his first season was memorable as that in which New Zealand shared a controversial Test series as the all-conquering West Indies team of the 1970s struck a maturing New Zealand team that was determined to make its imprint on the game.
It was the beginning of the first great era of the New Zealand game, one in which Neely immersed himself not only in selection duty but also in piecing together modern histories of New Zealand cricket as an adjunct to his editorship of the New Zealand Cricket Annual which had an appeal beyond the statistical record of the game that was the New Zealand Cricket Almanack.
His first historical work was for the centennial history of the Wellington Cricket Association, but he will always be remembered for his stupendous Men in White. It was available in a mammoth collectors' edition and a more practical size for most bookshelves in cricket fans' homes. Later, his credits for published books would extend to a photographic history of cricket in New Zealand for NZC's centennial and to various histories of the Basin Reserve and Lancaster Park, and Test match cricket in Wellington.
Former broadcaster and fellow writer Bill Francis has captured the background that led to these aspects while also drawing on the experiences of players and contacts to capture the nuances of his involvement in selection.
In that light, his description of the events leading into the 1992 Cricket World Cup, staged in New Zealand and Australia, is a reminder of how close New Zealand, beaten semi-finalists in the event, came to disaster as a result of a meeting with captain Martin Crowe before the event.
Typically, and although Crowe criticised him for it, Neely was prepared for a selectors' meeting with written comments and questions regarding Crowe's availability to play if he was not selected as captain for the World Cup.
What happened next is best left to the reader, but Crowe played and was crowned the player of the tournament. The pair knew each other well; Neely's wife, Paddianne, was a cousin of Crowe's father, Dave.
How New Zealand performed in that World Cup was partly down to Neely's planning for the side in preparation for the event. That the side encaptured the nation in a way that has rarely been repeated is without doubt, and, tragically, a bomb blast in Sri Lanka later in 1992 did so much to derail all the progress that had been made.
After New Zealand completed a drawn series with Australia, later in the summer of 1992-93, Neely ended his stint of selection, having been involved as New Zealand won 21 out of 30 Tests and played 180 one-day internationals.
New Zealand's loss was Wellington's gain, as he became a driver in the completion of the New Zealand Cricket Museum housed at the Basin Reserve and also a guiding hand in the hosting of international cricket at the ground.
Throughout his involvement in the game, and especially when playing and selecting, he was renowned for his theoretical propensities, which are not overlooked. However, it is also evident that not everyone accepted his decisions.
Some of those are among the strands of his career pulled together by Francis in a necessary and well-presented book that adds further lustre and information to the transformation of cricket in New Zealand.
Don Neely was a participating witness of an era of exponential growth in cricket in New Zealand, and his contribution is well represented in this tribute to his life.