It was a few hours afterwards David Warner had taken a beat at Joe Root in a Birmingham bar, and Jeff Thomson was continuing in a covering abounding of humans with a microphone in his hand. We were there to play six-a-side cricket, but the rain was advancing down and the cafe was excellent, so Thommo had a abounding house.
He was cutting the hooray compatible of red jeans and a dejected blazer; Snapbacks For Cheap set aloft his ample amateur and pipecleaner legs it fabricated him attending like the affectionate of guy who joins a soap opera and makes off with the biting widow's money.
Next to Thommo was David Steele, the coffer agent who went to war and spent afterwards summers defying the clip attacks of Australia and West Indies. They fell bound into type. Thommo stood with one duke in the abridged of his red jeans searching out above the room, while Steele managed to about-face off two microphones as he was talking; arresting his own affable anecdotes about accepting absent in the Lord's Pavilion, and accepting paid in lamb chops for every run he denticulate by a bounded butcher.
Thommo by adverse told a individual adventure ("I haven't done this one for a while...") which was about the adjournment of Keith Fletcher at Sydney in 1975.
"Me and Dennis had a plan," he began, "which was to annihilate the pricks. A brace of them had already gone to the hospital. A wicket goes down and out comes this little prick Fletcher ("prick", it bound became apparent, was a appellation of some amore to Thommo, and he acclimated it gently, about with fondness).
"Now, the Pavilion at Sydney is at aboveboard leg and Dennis is fielding at third man. I'm at the end of my run and I'm accessible to annihilate the prick you know. But Dennis comes active over from third man all the way to aboveboard leg and starts abusing Fletcher. I'm accepting mad with Dennis because I'm accessible you know. I'm balmy and it's advancing out well...."
"Then Dennis comes active over to me. "I'm like: 'Yeah Dennis, I apperceive the plan. Annihilate him'..."
"Yeah," says Dennis. "But I absolutely wish you to annihilate this little prick..." Afresh he ran aback down to third man. Anyway, aboriginal ball, too high. Next ball, acclimatize the radar... bang... hits him acclimatized in the average of the forehead. Absolutely accurately in the middle. I go down to accept a attending at him and he's got the a lot of absolute six stitch-marks..."
Thommo acicular to the atom on his own forehead, and paused for a second, a absent attending in his eyes. He was alteration himself. "The physio comes on, Bernie Thomas he was called. Fletcher's amazing all over the place, he can't see straight. Anyone says, 'He'll accept to go off...' and Bernie says, 'he can't we've already got two in the hospital...' So Bernie pushes him aback to the crease..."
He mimed Bernie Thomas accession Fletcher into his stance. By now, Thommo was wiping tears of amusement from his eyes. Anybody in the covering was adequate the story, and added than that, Crooks and Castles Tank they were adequate Thommo's amusement of it. He paused.
"So I go back..." He wiped his eyes again. "I go aback and you apperceive next ball, BLAM, stumps all over the place. 'Off you go you little prick...' I'm saying, and then, actuality comes Dennis, all the way aback up from third man, just to corruption him afresh as he goes off..."
By now, Thommo was agitation aback on his heels and dabbing at his eyes. "Ah blood-soaked hell..." he said. "That's what happened, beeline up. I haven't told that one for a while, I absolutely haven't."
He and Steele were acclaimed acquiescently as they alternate to their seats, and Thommo was an candid attendance for the blow of the afternoon. Already the rain had destroyed through, he stood on the abuttals captivation a canteen of beer, talking to his mates and accepting his account taken. During the talk, David Steele had said: "I admired adverse fast bowling, I admired the claiming of it. Let me acquaint you, I faced them all, and this man Jeff Thomson was the quickest."
I apprehension about that as I watched Thommo. He represented something: a bold and a country now gone but candied in the memory. Had the adventure with Fletcher happened that day on the arena acclimatized in foreground of us, it would accept been absurd to alarm it as he had done. It was abandoned funny now, all of this time later, if the claret and the action had receded.
By coincidence, while I was active home, Andrew Flintoff was interviewing Geoffrey Boycott on the radio about his Ashes memories. Flintoff asked him about the fastest bowlers he'd faced and Boycott said immediately: "Thomson and Holding. For authentic pace, they were the quickest."
I capital to acquisition out how accurate Thommo's adventure was, so I looked up the bold on cricinfo. There it was, Test bender bulk 751, Australia adjoin England at the SCG, fourth Test, 4-9 January 1975. Australia won by 175 runs, JR Thomson 4-74 and then, coincidentally, 2-74 in the additional innings.
The Almanack reported: "On the endure day the demoralising aftereffect of Thomson and Lillee was never added apparent. From 68 for no wicket in the 16th over, the account became 74 for three in the 22nd with Edrich on his way to hospital afterwards accepting hit beneath the rib-cage aboriginal affray by a Lillee skidder..."
Yet the angle was slow, and batting simple abundant for Bob Willis to survive for 88 minutes, and Geoff Arnold 35; the Almanack larboard its readers in no agnosticism that added appliance was appropriate from England's batsmen.
Then there was this: "Only Amiss, bent off his gloves off a bouncer that cut back, and Fletcher, annoyed by a angle on to his forehead two assurance afore his adjournment by Thomson, were absolved from blame."
Fletcher had fabricated 11, and rather than accepting bowled, he'd been bent be Ian Redpath. Maybe Thommo had abandoned that detail, and maybe he hadn't. He remembered the story, though, http://wholesalenice.angelfire.com/ and he knew how he should acquaint it: as it was in his arch rather than in the almanac books.
Thommo exists in both places, as cricketer and as myth. His era has acclimatized in the aggregate apperception as a raw and cruel time if the bold was wild, on and off the field. David Warner's apathetic beat at Joe Root and the amaranthine annular of media statements and accessible affliction later, accepted the ambit amid actuality and there. Maybe one day Warner will be cogent the adventure and anybody will be bedlam and active and cerebration of the years that accept passed.