Former Australia captain Bob Simpson, who passed away last week at 89, had his share of critics as he went about helping Australian cricket get out of a hole as their senior coach in the late 1980s
Australia coach Bobby Simpson celebrates his team’s victory over England in the fourth Ashes Test at Old Trafford, Manchester, on August 1, 1989. PIC/GETTY IMAGES
Last Saturday, cricket lost one of its most tireless servants — Bob Simpson. Bobby to friends and contemporaries, Simmo mostly to those he coached.
Trust Steve Waugh to give in to profundity. “No one gave more to Australian cricket than Bob Simpson — coach, player, commentator, writer, selector, mentor, and journalist,” said Waugh in tribute to his former coach recently.
Simpson thought the world of Waugh. During a visit to Mumbai in 1996, a few months after his stint as coach of Australia ended, Simpson told me in an interview that he thought Waugh was the best batsman in the world at the time: “Steve Waugh has been the best run-maker against everyone and in all countries over the last three seasons. He did not get the publicity as Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara did, but if you are putting your whole fortune on it, I bet you want to have Steve Waugh batting for you.”
Simpson’s contribution to game went beyond coaching Australia. He guided NSW, Lancashire, Holland and was a consultant to the Indian cricket board in the late 1990s. He did some mentorship at Mumbai’s Cricket Club of India too apart from being an ICC match referee and must have got to know the Indian players well at the 1999 World Cup. Before the 2003-04 India vs Australia Test at Adelaide, I got hold of Simpson to talk about India’s prospects in the series after the opening Test at Brisbane was drawn. Before the Adelaide Test, Anil Kumble had just five wickets to show in three Tests Down Under — all in 1999-2000. Simpson had no doubts over Kumble playing a positive role in the second Test and he did, bagging a fifer in his first crack of the series. Ajit Agarkar (6-41) was the other bowling hero as India won to go one-up in a Test series in Australia for the first time.
“I don’t think Kumble’s career is finished. He is just going through a [rough] period and he will sort it out,” Simpson said. Waugh walked past us just outside the Adelaide Oval dressing rooms as Simpson uttered these words, probably surprised that the former coach of the Australian team was in Adelaide to help out the Indians.
Simpson, his contribution to the revival of Australian cricket notwithstanding which reflected in their 1987 World Cup triumph and various Test wins, was a controversial figure. Pundits felt he had too much of a say in Allan Border-led teams, but was not given as much power when Mark Taylor took over.
In that 1996 interview to me, he spoke about his exit after Australia achieved their long-pending goal — a series win over in the West Indies after 22 years, in 1995. “I was obviously disappointed. I had done a good job and the team were doing pretty well. I do not know what went wrong, but the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) felt it was time for a change. But I have been a selector long enough to know that players get dropped,” he said. Simpson had become a match referee by then after performing consultancy roles at Wellington (New Zealand) and Bermuda.
He was not coy to tell people that he was too familiar with a way of the world. In a Test match at Wankhede Stadium, journalists questioned match referee Simpson as to why he didn’t penalise a Sri Lankan bowler for his ugly gesture made to an Indian batsman despite there being photographic evidence of the incident. Simpson responded by saying he was old enough to know that photographs can be misleading. We in the media room thought he was just being facetious.
Players in his team had their clashes with him. The sore point among some players was the fact that Simpson was their coach as well as selector. Remember Tim Zoehrer, the Australian stumper, who played in the 1986 Tied Test at Chennai? Zoehrer brought up the problem of Simpson being coach and selector in his book, The Gloves Are Off. During a party at the 1987 Sharjah Cup, the Australian team were permitted to take back bottles of scotch to their rooms. Zoehrer picked up one too. The following day two teammates told Zoehrer that Simpson asked them whether he had, “stolen a bottle of scotch from the official function the previous night.”
The wicketkeeper was livid and gave Simpson a verbal spray at a meeting to decide on small fines. He called the coach “two-faced” and “yellow-bellied” and asked for a fine to be imposed on Simpson for “not having the b***s to ask me to my face whether I stole a bottle of scotch instead of asking my teammates if it were true.”
The following day, while the team were heading back to Australia, they were informed that Simpson was appointed selector for the next three years. Zoehrer played only once again for Australia!
Dean Jones, the late Australian batsman, once wrote a column on how the atmosphere in the team was, “more relaxed” when Simpson’s leave coincided with the Australia vs South Africa ODI on January 9, 1994, the very game in which the dazzling batsman smashed 98 at Brisbane. Jones’s collaborator for his columns was cricket writer Mark Ray, a friend of this newspaper. Ray wrote in the book Border & Beyond that, “Jones was expressing what almost every employee in Australia feels when his or boss is away for a while.” Coach Simpson didn’t view it similarly and Ray’s sources told him that he threatened Jones with legal action before withdrawing it.
Despite his differences with Simmo, Jones never underestimated the difference he made to Australia’s cricketing ecosystem. Jones didn’t hesitate to tell me this when I asked him what his former coach could do as consultant for India in 1999: “Simmo will dot the ‘i’ and cross the ‘t’ in your cricket.” RB Simpson was not universally liked, but his contribution to the game is close to matchless.
mid-day’s Deputy Editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance.
He tweets @ClaytonMurzello. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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