In the former off-spinner's death, Australian and world cricket lost a tireless worker, who was ever-willing to help practitioners of his craft
Sri Lanka coach Bruce Yardley with captain Arjuna Ranatunga in 1998. Pic/MID-DAY Archives
As Ravichandran Ashwin was left wondering whether there will ever be a closure to the controversy over his run-out of Jos Butler in the Indian Premier League last week, another off-spinner – Australia's Bruce Yardley, 71 – left for Elysian Fields after a long battle with cancer.
Yardley figured in three Test series against India in which he bagged 21 wickets. Overall, he claimed 126 scalps in 33 Tests.
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In a television show, Salaam Cricket, last year, Indian cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar revealed that Yardley was the bowler who troubled him the most. “I wasn't able to pick him when he delivered the ball and he had a long run-up for an off-spinner. I was uncomfortable playing him,” the Indian legend was quoted as saying on the India Today website. Yardley dismissed Gavaskar only twice -- in the 1979-70 series -- at Bangalore and Kanpur.
The Western Australian, who went on to become Sri Lanka's coach in 1997 when World Cup-winning coach Dav Whatmore surprisingly stepped down, was as interesting as they come. He started off as a medium pacer, who couldn't find a regular place in his state team after debuting for Western Australia in 1966-67. After one game that season, his next solitary Sheffield Shield opportunity came in 1971.
On the advice of Keith Slater, a former Australia player, he switched to off-spin bowling in 1974. He retained his run-up to ensure he didn't lose his rhythm. Anything that had to be done to earn him a regular place in a team, he did. In an article for Cricket in Australia 1981-82 yearbook, the season in which Yardley was named the Benson & Hedges International Cricketer of the Year, Ian Brayshaw revealed that Yardley worked tirelessly with statemate and mentor Rod Marsh on reducing his speed to make him a near-perfect orthodox off-spinner. Before that memorable season, Yardley served a liquor brand in Perth and while he held a good sales position, he quit to join a local club as its curator. This shift provided him the time to work on his game. In 1981, he also ran a sports store. Business presumably was flourishing in 1981-82 because Yardley was the toast of Australian cricket with 51 wickets.
In the Perth Test of the 1981-82 series against Pakistan (more famous for the Dennis Lillee-Javed Miandad scuffle), Yardley didn't get to bowl in the first innings thanks to the speedy nature of the WACA pitch for which Lillee, Terry Alderman and Jeff Thomson were enough. In the second innings, the Miandad-led Pakistan side collapsed to the spin of Yardley, who claimed six for 84 in pursuit of an impossible 543-run victory target.
Two months later, it was the West Indies who encountered the wily Yardley. After winning the Melbourne Test, Australia aimed to clinch a rare series win over Clive Lloyd's men in the second Test but the game ended in a draw at Sydney where Yardley returned career-best figures of 7 for 98. The decider in Adelaide went West Indies' way, but Yardley contributed with a fifer in the first innings.
Yardley also played a decent hand in Australia regaining the Ashes in 1982-83 under Greg Chappell. But when he was not picked in the World Cup squad of 1983, he decided to end his international cricket career.
In several Tests in 1981-82, Yardley's most memorable season, Australia fielded teams that had seven Western Australians -- Graeme Wood, Bruce Laird, Kim Hughes, Marsh, Lillee, Alderman and Yardley himself. That's a tribute to the region's cricketing strength. It was also a tribute to Yardley's skills.
He was more of a Test bowler but there is one achievement that meant he could have been a fast scorer in the one-day game. In 1978, Yardley took only 29 balls to reach his fifty against the West Indies in Bridgetown for an eventual top score of 74 against an attack comprising Andy Roberts, Colin Croft and Joel Garner. Blows on the elbow, toe and throat during that innings were not easily forgotten.
Yardley enjoyed a satisfying coaching career. In 1997, he told me that he had spotted a young spinner among a group of young Sri Lankan cricketers in a camp at Colombo in 1991 while on an Australia-Sri Lanka exchange programme. When he returned home he told his friends he was convinced that the young tweaker would be a big performer for his country. His name: Muttiah Muralitharan.
Yardley needed a helping hand throughout his Test career. He asked for advice and followed it up with sheer hard work and he was always willing to help a struggling spinner. During our 1997 interaction at the Taj in Mumbai, he also offered to help Rajesh Chauhan, another bowler who had come under the scanner for a suspect bowling action. In 2004, before the Cairns Test, Muralitharan called Yardley, requesting him to have a session with Upul Chandana, the out-of-form Sri Lankan leg-spinner. Chandana ended the drawn Test with 10 wickets to his name.
A melanoma behind Yardley's left eye did not spread when it was discovered but cancer struck again in 2016 and eventually won. Yardley lost his battle, but his various triumphs and efforts on other challenging pitches should never be forgotten. As his fellow Western Australia teammate Brayshaw wrote in 1982, “Yardley never lost the common touch, never shirked a long stint at the crease and always threw himself into his game with that typical, almost childlike enthusiasm which has always been part of his game.”
mid-day's group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
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