Published in 2016

The charge of the Hill Brigade was on, though their preferred weapon of attack was not musket riffles but unopened cans of beer. Full-strength lager launched by burly men in singlets and terry towelling bucket hats intent on teaching the ancient SCG scoreboard and its tardy attendants a prompt lesson in mathematics.

Their war crime: an inability to keep up with the streaky four-hitting ability of Gary Cosier, Australia’s ginger-haired No. 6, who’d had the temerity to edge and square-cut a rampant Imran Khan for four successive boundaries.

As hundreds of a luminium missiles whizzed past cowering spectators towards the hand-cranked scoreboard and its attractive bat and ball weather vane, I comforted myself in the knowledge my grandfather had chosen a safe viewing position for us on the wooden benches in front of the old Bob Stand, a good 20 metres from the infamous Hill.

In hindsight, the chaos of that opening day of the third Test against Pakistan – so routine it wasn’t even reported in the Sydney Morning Herald the next day – was almost a portent for the unruly battles that would follow, just months later, for the soul of international cricket.

Watching an entire Test match live is something of a rite of passage for Australian ‘country’ boys. We’d caught the train down from Newcastle (100 miles north of Sydney) – the hometown of the uber-talented Gary Gilmour and the uber-inconsistent Bob Holland – and booked in to the People’s Palace, a cheap and cheerful Salvation Army hostel for working people.

Of course, my grandfather – and a majority of Australians – didn’t necessarily see it that way. The ACB welcomed Bishan Bedi’s Indians and our eagerly anticipated SCG Test tradition continued as if the “Packer circus” had never happened. But St Nicholas had obviously felt the winds of change. That Christmas I received a WSC Cricketeers membership pack, consisting of an avocado green supporters cap, a board game, tickets to Country Cup matches (played by the ‘Cavaliers’, the team reserved for outcasts from the Australian, West Indian and World XIs) a page of facsimiled autographs, and most importantly a flexi disc of C’mon Aussie C’mon, the new TV anthem. Packer was already winning the marketing war.

I also discovered my Gray-Nicolls Record was out of date. The old-school maroon, black and white label had given way to a funky, more Seventies-friendly, red and light pink number. This never-ending summer had claimed another unsuspecting victim.