Bill Brown - serene as the deep blue sea

Former Australia test cricketer Bill Brown speaks with media during the Test Cricketers Cap Presentation Reunion media call at the Marriott Hotel July 11, 2003 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)

Flamboyance has its own place in cricket. The swashbuckling, Errol Flynn-like dashers have long enthralled spectators, and they still do.

But spare a thought for those who weren’t particularly – for lack of a better term – flashy. They quietly went about their task day after day, innings after innings, match after match. Not for them the limelight or playing to the gallery.

If Australia had Don Bradman to boast of, they also had another exceptionally skilled exponent of the willow – who did his job almost unobtrusively.

He was William Alfred Brown, more commonly known as Bill Brown, arguably one of Australia’s best batsmen to have ever played the game, especially in the pre-war era. Between 1934 and 1948, he represented his country in 22 Tests, captaining in one. His opening partnership with Jack Fingleton is considered among the finest in Australian Test history.

But things were not as rosy as they seem now.

Born on July 31, 1912 in Toowoomba, Queensland, Brown’s father made the decision to move to Marrickville, Sydney, after his hotel business failed. At the age of three, Brown had to share a bed with his brother in the family’s modest one-bedroom home. The family’s poor financial position prompted young Bill to leave high school after two years to find work and substantiate the household income. In those days of the Great Depression, the then-17 year old was unable to find regular full-time work.

Proceeding to the Marrickville Cricket Club, Brown began playing grade cricket in 1929-30. Having started off as a wicket-keeper, he soon changed his focus to opening the innings, but couldn’t hold down a regular place in the side. An innings of 172 for the Sutherland Shire re-invigorated his career just when he had almost decided to leave Sydney. Following consistent performances, he won a place in the New South Wales squad in 1932-33.

Run out for a duck in his first first-class match for NSW against Queensland, Bill ended up on the winning side as his team won by an innings and 274 runs. Against Douglas Jardine’s touring English squad, the 20-year old made a faultless 69, and later scored 79 against South Australia. He faced Don Bradman’s ire owing to poor communication with his batting partners, and finished the season with 269 runs.

He fared better in his second season, scoring 878 runs to finish second behind Bradman on run-scoring aggregates. When the squad for the 1934 England tour was chosen, Brown was selected ahead of Fingleton, owing to a nomination from the Don. He scored a match-winning 73 in the second innings of the first Test, handing his country the win.

In the second game of the series, Brown opened with skipper Bill Woodfull after long-time opener Bill Ponsford was sidelined due to illness. Playing at Lord’s, he scored his maiden Test century – unhurried, unruffled and balanced. Though England won the game, Brown was one of the few Australians to have made a significant impact with the bat. He scored 300 runs in the entire series, failing to pass 20 in the last two Tests, as Australia took the Ashes 2-1.

Upon returning to Australia, both Woodfull and Ponsford retired, handing over the baton to Brown and Fingleton for the 1935-36 tour of South Africa. It was to be their most productive phase – the two shared Australia’s highest double-century opening stand in Test cricket at Cape Town in the third game of the series. With Fingleton scoring three consecutive centuries, the pair helped Australia win the series 4-0, and established themselves as the country’s premier opening partners.

an cricket team, captained for the last time by Sir Donald Bradman, (from L) opening batsman Bill Brown, fast bowler Bill Johnston, century batsman Neil Harvey, and all-rounder Sam Loxton reunite in Sydney. Bill Brown, considered the grandfather of Australian cricket, had died at 95, media reported late on March 17, 2008. Brown died at a nursing home in Brisbane on Sunday, News Limited reported. The cricketer was among the last batch who played Test cricket for Australia before World War II. (TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/Getty Images)

Brown’s greatest innings in Test cricket came in the historic second Ashes Test at Lord’s in 1938 – the first ever game to be televised. He hammered an unbeaten 206, an innings characterized by powerful drives on both sides of the wicket. It was the first instance of a player carrying his bat through one single innings, as well as being the 100th century for Australia against England. The Kangaroos eventually went on to draw the game, a result that was instrumental in their retention of the Ashes.

Of his innings, the inimitable Neville Cardus wrote: “ I have seldom seen a young man play the veteran’s part as easily as Brown did today“. Journalist Ray Robinson quipped: “Brown’s performance did not cause smoke to rise from the television sets, but the charm of his style gave viewers a favourable impression of Australian batsmanship.”

Such was the charisma that Brown’s batting style possessed – something that was visible yet inconspicuous, unhurried yet quick. According to Johnnie Moyes, Brown had a superior record in England because of the serenity of the English gallery, unlike the impatient Australian crowd.

Later in the tour, playing against Derbyshire, Bill blasted an unbeaten 265, his highest first-class score, in six hours at the crease; Australia won by an innings. He made another century against Warwickshire, resulting in yet another innings victory. Wisden consecrated these magnificent performances by naming him Cricketer of the Year in 1938.

In the 1938-39 Sheffield Shield season, Brown captained Queensland and scored 990 runs in six matches at an average of 110. After twelve matches for his home state, he was yet to taste victory, and he got it when Queensland defeated his former state team of New South Wales; Brown himself made 95 and 168 in the eventual eight-wicket win. In total, he made 1057 runs that season, and scored another 857 in the following one.

The arrival of the second World War saw cricket in Australia being curtailed. Bill served with the RAAF as a flight lieutenant in New Guinea and the Philippines. The war years robbed him of his cricketing prime – he was 27 at the time. He played cricket on and off, but was never able to reach such great heights again.

After the war, Brown led a young side to New Zealand for a match that was retrospectively given Test status. He scored 67 in a 109-run stand with the young Sid Barnes, enabling his side to reach 199/8 after the Kiwis were bowled out for 42. Australia eventually won the game by an innings, with New Zealand suffering another collapse to be all out for 54. With the emergence of Barnes and the youthful Arthur Morris, Brown had limited opportunities to bat at the top of the order, and the 1948 ‘Invincibles’ tour was his last.

Bill also had the dubious distinction of being the first batsman to be “Mankaded”. India toured Australia for the first time in the 1947-48 season, and the veteran Aussie opener had backed up too far; Vinoo Mankad, in his delivery stride, whipped off the bails, sending Brown back to the pavilion for 18. He later admitted it was his own fault and made light of the incident in his own unassuming way. In the same series, he was run out for 99, but India fell to a heavy second-innings defeat, denying the opener his chance to score a Test hundred on home soil.

His last Test innings came at Lord’s in the second Test of the 1948 Ashes – he made 24 and 32. With the advent of Barnes, Morris, Sam Loxton and a teenaged Neil Harvey, Brown was dropped from the playing eleven altogether, and he retired from cricket in June 1948.

Bill served as a national selector in 1952-53, a tenure marked by abuse and harassment from parochial Queensland natives. In 1992, he became a life member of the Queensland Cricket Association, and was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to cricket in 2000.

A genial, jovial soul, Bill and his wife Barbara were often considered as Australian cricket‘s grandparents; former Australian players Steve Waugh and Glenn McGrath were regular Christmas visitors to their Brisbane home. Waugh, during his tenure as national captain, would often call on Brown to present the baggy green to Test debutants, notably, Adam Gilchrist and Mike Hussey – a measure of the respect he carried for the old gentleman.

Upon Bradman’s demise in 2001, Bill became the oldest living Australian Test cricketer, a title that brought him great fame and amusement. Self-effacing and humble to the core, he enjoyed his trips to the Gabba, and was liked by all.

He would have been 101 today, still laughing at being called the oldest one of Bradman’s Invincibles. In the annals of Australian cricket, William Alfred Brown is, was and will always be, the epitome of the baggy green.

Happy birthday, Bill!