Watch: At Sydney in Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket, Mike Procter knocked the middle stump out of the ground to bowl Viv Richards.
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Kerry Packer had already waged war against the Australian cricket establishment. The rebel cricketers have been split into three teams – representing Australia, the West Indies, and a World XI.
When India came over that summer for five Test matches, Australia fielded a third-string side led by Bobby Simpson, who had retired a decade before the series.
The West Indies had begun their ascent in world cricket a year and a half before by thrashing England at home. Richards had amassed 829 runs in that series despite missing a Test match, while Andy Roberts and Michael Holding had snared 28 scalps apiece. By the time World Series began, Richards was already hailed among the finest in the world.
The World XI was a motley crew, comprising of cricketers from England, Pakistan, and South Africa. The Gleneagles Agreement had already put the official sanction on the Commonwealth’s ostracisation of South Africa – and cricket was essentially a Commonwealth sport.
However, there was no ban on the individuals, and stars like Barry Richards, the Pollock brothers, Eddie Barlow, Mike Procter, Clive Rice, and Garth le Roux played for Packer at various points of time.
Procter’s 41 wickets from seven pre-ban Test matches had come at a ridiculous 15.02, to go with his 226 runs at 25.11. Over the years, he would finish with 21,926 runs at 36 and 1,147 wickets at 19,53 in first-class cricket. He scored six consecutive hundreds in the format and hit six consecutive sixes and is, to date, one of only three batters to hold either world record.
So important was he to Gloucestershire’s success that they often called the county Proctershire.
Australia played three ‘Tests’ – these were labelled Supertests – against each of the West Indies and the World XI. The teams also played in the limited-overs triangular World Series Cricket International Cup, playing with a white ball and in white gear.
The three teams met in a quadruple round-robin league before group toppers West Indies played runners-up World XI in the first semi-final. World XI lost this, and met Australia in the second semi-final. Today, we would have called these the Qualifier and the Eliminator.
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In the first semi-final, the World XI fielded a pace attack comprising Procter, Imran Khan, and John Snow. Imran removed Roy Fredericks in the first over, while Procter clean bowled Gordon Greenidge. Neither man opened his account.
Then Procter produced a peach. Bowling from over the wicket with his curious wrong-footed action, he hurled a quick delivery that perhaps swung a tad into Richards and knocked the middle stump straight out of the ground. Richards walked back, the characteristic swagger in his strides intact despite the dismissal.
The dismissal left the West Indies reeling at 10-3. They became 55-5 before Collis King (65) and Deryck Murray (40) took them to 188 in this 40-over match of eight balls an over. Procter (3-29) and Imran (3-28) were the wreckers-in-chief.
Roberts (5-17) and Wayne Daniel (3-26) hit back, reducing the World XI to 23-5 and then 56-6. Tony Greig (46) and Alan Knott (44 not out) resisted, as did Procter (13) from No.9, but they were eventually bowled out for 166.
