Ric, Ric, hooray: How a hockey icon mixed it up with cricket

Perth Ric Charlesworth is known the world over as a hockey legend and there is not even an iota of a doubt that he is one considering hes won almost everything in the game ndash Olympics World Cup Commonwealth Games Champions Trophy either as a player and coach However the former Kookaburra also played state cricket for Western Australia WA in the 1970sRic Charlesworth at a cafe in Subiaco at Perth yesterday PicAshwin FerroCharlesworth began his professional sporting career as an opening batsman for WA He played 47 firstclass matches scoring 16 half centuries and one century at an average of 3022 at a time when most of his WA teammates played for the national team He also played against the touring Indian team at the WACA in 197778 and scored an impressive 95midday caught up with the multifaceted sporting stalwart ndash besides cricket and hockey the 63yearold has also been an Aussie Rules football coach politician doctor author golfer and motivational speaker He has given it all up now and simply wants to be a doting fatherExcerpts from an interviewMy early years in cricketMy father Lester played cricket for WA as an opening batsman so I guess I got it from there He then became a selector for WA He was a dentist When I was eight I played cricket in the backyard of his clinic with Wes Hall and Garry Sobers They were here for the 196061 Test series in which the tied Test took place at Brisbane Rohan Kanhai came back and played club cricket here so I was introduced to cricket as a childCricket and hockey clashedI played in the 1970s for WA Top national players like Wally Edwards Graham Watson Bruce Wood Graeme Wood and Geoff Marsh were my opening partners then In school Christ Church Grammar School in Perth I used to play cricket in the summer and hockey in the winter and was pretty decent in both It was a time when you could do both But as time went on the sports began clashing In 1974 Pakistan and Holland toured Australia Then in 1975 I took a chunk of the cricket season away for the hockey World Cup in Malaysia which India went on to win In 1979 I was captain of the WA cricket team but the national hockey team was preparing for the Olympics and we had to tour Pakistan in the beginning of 1980 so I had to relinquish my WA cricket captaincy because of hockey Of course eventually we didnt go to Moscow because of the boycott and so it turned out to be a bad decision for me So I ended up not putting enough time into cricket which maybe I should have or could have and when I stopped playing 1979 to prepare for the Moscow Olympics I was just 27Western Australias 197677 Sheffield Shieldwinning squad Standing L to R Ian Brayshaw Thomas Mullooly Rob Langer Mick Malone Dennis Lillee Craig Sergeant Bruce Yardley Darryl Foster manager Seated Bob Paulsen Ric Charlesworth encircled Rod Marsh captain Bruce Laird and Kim Hughes Pic courtesy australian cricket yearbook 1977Batting at the WACA was difficultIt was a difficult time There were a lot of fast bowlers at that time I remember playing against India Pakistan England West Indies ndash we beat them all at the WACA In 1972 we had five to six WA players in the Test team ndash Dennis Lillee Bob Massie Rodney Marsh Graeme Watson John Inverarity and Ross EdwardsDennis Lillee was a tearawayThomson used to open the bowling for Queensland at the Gabba but fortunately for me the Gabba back then was flat I dont know why they did that because Thommo would always steam in I first played against Lillee in A Grade cricket when I was still a schoolboy He was a bit older I remember it was a semifinal At the time the WACA used to have two wickets as it was a much bigger ground ndash there was an east and west wicket We played at the west wicket which was much more lively as it was closer to the lake Rod Marsh was our club captain and he said to me good luck out there son Dennis was a tearaway then you didnt know where it was going So I faced up to the big guys from an early age I dont remember what I scored in that game but I know we won it There were a lot of good fast bowlers in club cricket then There was this guy called Stan Wilson and he was probably quicker than Lillee He played for WA later too Then there was Ian King and Graham McKenzie who played for other teams and they were all fast I faced Dennis later on in the nets and he was always super quick He was my roommate on my first tourOn batting at WACAWe learnt in due course that you could leave the ball which you thought was going on to hit the stumps and it would go over It was all about judging the length and knowing what you have to play and what you dont The bounce was reliable and predictable and you were much better off leaving the ballI made a skull capIf you go to the WACA museum youll see that there is a skull cap that I had made which I used to wear back It was like Mike Brearleys skull cap There were no helmets back then so I made one for myself At the time I was a medical student and one day we were doing angiography on this guy on the table I asked what had happened to him and I was told that he was hit by a cricket ball on the head The guy was Bob Bosword who used to open the batting for South Perth I knew him and I was an opening batsman too so thats how went about making the skull cap in 1974 Four to five years later I was at a coaching seminar and Barry Richards South African batting stalwart was there too World Series Cricket had started and someone asked Barry what he thought of the helmets that people wore And he said I think Im a pretty good batsman I can play short bowling I can hook and cut but sometimes I can make an error in judgment and mistime one so why wouldnt I wear a helmet I wear a seatbelt when I drive a car So it was the start of it Initially you were seen as a bit of a sissy if you wore it now everybody doesOh those great India spinnersThat Indian team had Bishan Singh Bedi Erapalli Prasanna Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkataraghavan ndash all four top spinners Opening the batting wasnt that difficult because there were no speed devils in that team I got out to Prasanna while sweeping and topedged one to the boundary Chandrasekhar had a quick action and used the bounce well at the WACA Bedi was a fine leftarmer Venkat was flatter and Prasanna had good loop Sunny was a superb technician ndash almost like a machine He was perfectly balanced and thorough You didnt think of getting him out too often because you couldntLife after cricket and hockeyAfter my cricket and hockey career I worked with an Aussie Rules Football club I was a Member of Parliament here for 10 years from 1983 to 1993 Then I went to Italy for a year wrote three books on coaching ndash i The Coach ii Shakespeare the Coach iii Staying at the Top Then in 2005 I got a call from Martin Snedden to be high performance manager of New Zealand Cricket under coach John Bracewell I enjoyed that Now Im writing a book at the moment about my time with the Australian mens hockey team My third and youngest son Hugo is just 12 and he plays cricket He just scored a decent 41 in a club game on Sunday I was offered a commentary assignment for the Hockey India League but turned it down because I dont want a 24x7 job now The Australian hockey team has also been calling me but Im not going I just want to sit back and spend some time with my family Ive been too busy throughout my life