Grimmett - how did they not see his potential?
Lynn McConnell offers the first in a series of articles about players and events that have made a mark on New Zealand cricket. First up is the background to leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett's move to Australia.
New Zealand's cricket administrators, and selectors especially, have dropped some clangers through the years but letting leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett slip through their fingers was among the worst.
He would enjoy fame as one of Australia's bowlers by the time he was finished he 216 Test wickets, all this after waiting 10 years to play his first Test after moving from New Zealand to Australia and making his debut aged 32.
But none could deny him the fact that had he stayed in New Zealand he would never have had the opportunities that Australia provided to play cricket at the highest level.
Having wanted to be a fast bowler when starting out, and what young boy doesn't want to be a fast bowler, it was an incident at his Mount Cook School in Wellington, after his family transferred north from Dunedin, that set his train in life.
He bowled fast in a game for the school because he thought his leg-breaks might prove expensive. But he was so tired after his first stint that when he was thrown the ball for his second spell he bowled leg-spinners.
His coach, a teacher at the school, a Mr F.A. Hempleman, was umpiring and asked him if he had bowled a leg-break intentionally?
"'Yes, sir,' I replied. 'Bowl another one,' he said. I did so. 'In future you must always bowl leg breaks,'"[1] he was told.
When his teacher was at games he stuck to his edict but on one occasion when the teacher had to leave early to meet a ship, Grimmett couldn't resist some fast bowling and he took seven wickets for three runs, including one unfortunate youth who was given out lbw when he ducked so low to avoid a ball he was hit on the head in front of the wickets, and had to be carried from the ground.
His team won the schools' competition in three consecutive years and not long after his 7-3, he was selected to play in a Wellington schools representative side against Wairarapa Schools.
"Mr Hempleman was one of the umpires, and so I had to get back to the leg-breaks. The poor little boys from Wairarapa had never seen leg-breaks, and they were hopeless. We made 138, and dismissed them for eight and four runs respectively. My figures were six for five in the first innings, and eight for one in the second. This match did a great deal to make me realise the value of slow bowling, and from then on I persevered with the leg-break."[2]
While he had a faster ball in his armoury, he discarded it after seeing how good batsmen were able to pick it.
"In its place I developed the over-spinner, the ball which looks like a leg-break, but comes straight through. It has won me many lbw decisions, and has hit the stumps a few times, in fact, it has secured more wickets for me than any other ball I have used."[3]
He tried it on Wellington batsman Jack Hutchings in the nets, when Hutchings asked him to bowl to him.
"Eventually I sent down the straight one with the leg-break action and beat him completely. He looked very surprised, and went out and patted the pitch down, but when a similar ball tricked him he said, 'Look here, sonny, did you bowl that straight one on purpose?' 'Yes, sir,' I replied.' "Well, my boy, you stick to that ball and you'll get a lot of victims with it,' was his advice."[4]
Grimmett played senior cricket while at high school and from early on one his ambitions was to play for New Zealand. But the closest he got was getting vaccinated to be ready in case a member of the team that toured Australia in the 1913-14 season had to drop out. But that didn't happen.
Before then in 1910, he was picked in Wellington's 2nd XI for a Boxing Day game against Marlborough, across Cook Strait. It was a day after his 18th birthday and in Marlborough's two innings he took eight wickets for 58 runs. Grimmett claimed that resulted in him being named in his first Plunket Shield game, a season later, against Auckland, and one of the most exciting matches in New Zealand's early cricket history. J.V. Saunders, who was coaching in Wellington, after his international career with Australia, was also in the team.
Clarrie Grimmett, (second from left) leaning on bannister on steps of Basin Reserve pavilion, in Wellington team of 1911/12. (Picture: Sportsman)
Auckland's ninth wicket in its second innings fell when 37 runs were required to win. But the batsmen [Fred] Mason and [Alan] Wallace were steady enough to see Auckland home. Saunders took six for 86 and three for 84 while Grimmett took none for 68 and four for 48.
"My none for 68 was a better performance than it sounds. I had worried all the batsmen, but did not have the extra slice of luck which makes all the difference.
"L.G. 'Chummy' Hemus, the Auckland captain and top scorer, congratulated me on my bowling in the first innings. I think he meant it, too, for when he and M. [Melville] Crombie of Wellington, were helping to choose the side for the 1913-14 Australia tour, they both urged my inclusion.
"The other three selectors lived in the South Island and had not seen me play. They over-ruled Hemus and Crombie and made me first emergency. More than 15 years later, when I toured New Zealand with an Australian side, I met Dan Reese, one of the three South Island selectors, and he told me how sorry he was that he had not believed the glowing reports which Hemus and Crombie gave of me."[5]
Reese told a slightly different story in his book, Was It All Cricket?
"It has been said that the selectors made a mistake in overlooking his [Grimmett's] claims. [Don] Sandman was the acknowledged leg-break bowler of New Zealand, and no one, not even the Wellington selector, urged Grimmett's claims. I had not seen him play, but I should have taken more notice of Harry Trott's remark to me the previous season, when he said, 'There's a lad named Grimmett in the Wellington team who's going to make a good player.' However, it is obvious that Trott was referring to his batting, for young Grimmett made scores of 19 and 29 but took only one wicket in the match against South Melbourne."[6]
South Melbourne captain Trott told the Lyttelton Times more when saying Grimmett took his fancy.
"He is one of the 'googly' order and bowls the 'wrong 'un' well. On a faster wicket, I feel sure that he would do better, as he keeps such a remarkably fine length, or, at least, he did so against us. He seems to be to be a promising all-round cricketer. He fields, bowls, and bats well, although his style is rather crude with the willow. Experiences in good cricket may soon remedy that."[7]
Given what Trott said, especially his comments about bowling on faster pitches, it would not surprise that Grimmett started to think about what opportunities might be available for him in Australia, especially having missed the New Zealand tour.
In an earlier comment to the same newspaper, he said, "Grimmett was another man in Wellington whom I admired, not so much for his style with the bat, but for his determination at a crisis.
"He was the coolest man in the field when just on 30 runs were required to win, and I really believe he could have got the runs had he had anyone who could have stayed with him. Certainly he got out last man, but threw his wicket away in playing the game when the last man, Southall, arrived. I will not at all be surprised to see him as one of the best all-round men in New Zealand in the near future."[8]
Grimmett decided a few months before the First World War broke out, to move to Australia to not only have a look around but to play some cricket under Australian conditions.
It would be 11 years before he broke into Test ranks but throughout that decade his study of the art of bowling never wavered. Along the way his skills were quickly appreciated wherever he went.
Upon landing in Sydney he tried to play for Victor Trumper's Paddington club but he didn't qualify residentially so played for Sydney, the neighbouring club. His first game was for their third XI as he arrived after they had named the starting sides for the season.
"I was quite happy because all I wanted was a chance. Our opponents that Saturday were University, and I scored 60 runs and took 12 wickets for about five runs apiece. This took me into the second XI."
But he had to wait nearly two-thirds of the season until illness left a vacancy in the 1st XI which was down to play Redfern at the SCG. He took 12 wickets for 65 runs across the two innings and gained a permanent place.
Grimmett said when Redfern batsman Foster came in, his future Test captain Herbie Collins, who was fielding in the covers, told him, to throw a ball well up to him with plenty of spin on it, just outside his off stump.
"'If you do that he'll have a go at it and I'll catch him,' he said, and sure enough, he did."[9]
Grimmett ended that first grade season with 28 wickets at an average of 10.
Two seasons later he moved to Melbourne and, having played a midweek game for the South Melbourne Club a year earlier, a game arranged for Grimmett by Saunders who had returned to Melbourne, he played for them for three seasons. Grimmett was selected for Victoria's first game after the end of World War One. However, he had few opportunities at first-class level and after the 1924 season he was offered a better job in Adelaide, which he took, and set himself for the most substantial part of his career.
By the time he had finished, Grimmett had his 216 Test wickets at 24.22 and 1424 first-class wickets at 22.28 – second on the all-time New Zealand list behind Sir Richard Hadlee who ended with 1490 wickets.