Dennis Lillee phoned me this week. Suddenly, I was 10 years old again
I intend, You, or do not happen to remember that you have looked at your adoring fans on the Scg Hill, more than 50 years ago, and that you have seen a 10-year shy in a white-towelling hat standing on the picnic basket as her mother and dad to have the same height as my three brothers, who join timidly in singing, “”Lilleee! Lillee! Lillee!“While you returned to your sign?
“Era You? Yes, I remind you of you! I knew this when I met you. “
I I knew It!
(I saw for him to some lunches and dinners a couple of decades ago, through brissie, sydney and melbourne, and I was embarrassingly touched that he remembers. “Fitzy”. He called me “Fitzy”. But the Digress …)
And while the child with Terry’s towelling hat is undoubtedly one of your greatest memories of the Scg, I suppose you have to have a little bit other Great memories of our great old lady?
“Yes,” he says, “he is the Australian gentleman. It is a special place, and I really liked playing there. The thing about it is only that wonderful story. When I was playing there, I would have thought that I was in the same place where Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller, Richie Benaud, Bradman, Bradman made all their names – all of them.
What about specific matches?
“Sometimes I think the best he has ever played has been to the Scg in a game of a day of cricket of the World Series. This will not excite the purists, but they can thank God that there was the cricket of the World Series, because he gave the cricket the position he deserves. So this game was against the windies and everything seemed to be so easy and worked so magnificently.
“The World Series cricket gave cricket the position it deserved.”Credit: Getty
What about the other famous story of The Scg: did the first game of cricket of the World Series played, when Kerry Packer asked you to come before the game? It is true?
“Absolutely. He sent John Cornell to take me, and I climbed in one of those large rooms at the top that I had never been bleeding.
And what did Packer tell you?
“He just said:” We did it, son. “It was the moment when he and we knew that the cricket of the World Series would work. Our crowds had been small to that point, but the first game of the World Series in Sydney was the turning point. The crowd of Sydney decided that he liked our cricket better than the things we had left behind, and our crowds were only huge At that time.”
You were, seriously, the Australian hero. How it really was, feeling the singing “Lilleeeee! Lilleeee! Lilleeeee!“You made a break to consider, This is surprising. I’m in Sydney and are standing in the hill, singing my name?
“Listen, don’t think much about it at the moment you run. There is no sound. Your concentration takes over for the most of the time, you know?” (I know. It happened to me all the time.) “But while you go back to your sign, you can hear it and it’s simply fantastic. Lifts you up.”
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Your boys invented slipping, but someone has ever dared to slip You at the Scg?
“I really can’t remember, but I know I would do it. There was this boy, Keith Fletcher was his name, a little similar to a gnome. I launched this ball that had to have hit him on the fingers or on the elbow or something like that.
I took it, yes! Middle stump!
You were my hero. Who was yours?
“Muhammad Ali, Wesley Hall, Ray Lindwall, Freddie Trueman.”
In short, I understood well, Dennis? You took 355 WICKET tests plus 79 in super tests. You married a good woman, to live happy and happy and you raised good children. You have been the hero of Australia for decades and you are still for many of my generations. Do you ever think you are the most blessed bastard I’ve ever lived?
‘Special Bond’: Lillee (right) with Greg Chappell (center) and Rod Marsh after their last test for Australia, against Pakistan at the Scg in 1984.Credit: Paul Mathews
“Absolutely, every day. I kick every day.”
Someone told you the other day as the “Greta Garbo del Cricket”, while you make so few apparitions these days. So what is the link between you guys who make someone fly like if you flight in the width of the continent to help Greg Chappell, without asking questions?
“We have that bond. And Greg was such an integral part of the team – a great captain, great player, a very elegant batter – and obviously he is doing something for the homeless in Australia, which is a terrible plague. So I am very happy to help.”
I can’t wait to see you, Mr. Lillee. I will be the one in Terry’s towelling hat, standing on the wicker basket. See you on the evening of April 30, at the Grand Old Lady, the Australian Lord.
