Shannon Gill talks to an Australian icon about the summer his cult-hero status was forged.
“The problem with Merv Hughes… is that he thinks he’s a fast bowler.”
Ian Chappell’s assessment of Merv Hughes’ early forays into Test cricket was blunt, but hardly harsh.
His debut against India in 1985 returned one wicket at a high price. In his first Ashes Test he was embarrassed by a Botham assault and made a pair in a seven-wicket defeat.
In an era where pace ruled the world, the Hughes macho show – handlebar moustache and the rest – had fallen flat, just 21 wickets at 37 in seven Tests. His Australia captain Allan Border was forced to issue a public ultimatum: “If he’s going to be fair dinkum he should look at this [weight problem] very closely… He’s got a long, long way to go.”
Hughes was selected to play in the Ashes and was accused of exactly that. “Off the back of the exercise stuff, when we went to England the media was all about me,” he says. “AB liked that because it took the pressure off the rest of the team and it wasn’t going to worry me.
“There were jibes going around that I’d only been picked because I was a character but I thought once it got started they’d write about who was getting runs and wickets and it wouldn’t be me, so I went along for the ride, it was all good fun.
“They called me a surfie from Bondi – I’m not from New South Wales and I’d never been on a surfboard in my life! I learned a lot about myself from the tabloids.”
Billboards depicted him with beer froth in his moustache, but 19 wickets in a 4-0 series smashing ensured Hughes and Australia had the last laugh. They wouldn’t relinquish the Ashes for another 16 years.
And yet, while Hughes played 42 of Australia’s 47 Tests after the 88/89 season, claiming 177 wickets at under 27 in them, and while Australia reached No.2 in the world with Hughes in the team, and No.1 the year after he retired as the West Indies were finally toppled, his legacy rests not on the years of success, but on the summer he came to be loved.
“It’s helped me since, don’t worry about that, I’m still living off that season. People still walk up and all they want to do is the stretching.”
Hughes gave Australia someone to cheer when they had little. Sometimes that’s enough.
