Roy Fredericks' big time brutality at Perth

Fredericks' outstanding innings

Roy Fredericks came out to open the innings with Bernard Julien, who was an all-rounder and suited more at number six or seven. But, Lloyd played a gamble as at that point of time he had less faith in his another young player Gordon Greenidge who bagged a pair in Gabba.

Anyhow, Dennis Lillee, the tear-away fast bowler took the new ball to bowl the first over. Lillee’s second ball was banged in short and with pace and Fredericks tried to hook it – the ball flew off the top-edge and landed in the crowd sitting on the leg side boundary.

It was a six and thus, one of Test cricket’s most dynamic and jaw-dropping knocks started to unfold.

Back-foot stroke-play requires confidence and courage and to exploit it against the fury of Lillee, Thomson, Walker and Gilmour on a quick wicket was nothing short of a Herculean act.

The fast bowlers of those days didn’t like to be hooked, pulled and cut mercilessly. It was dubbed as an insult to them and on that eventful day, Fredericks kept bruising the ego of the Australian pace attack with a rare disdain.

Lillee sent down his missiles, Thomson bowled like a tornado and Walker and Gilmour hurled down short deliveries regularly, but Fredericks swiveled, turned the bat over and down, brutally hooked and pulled to send the ball into the boundary.

His cut shots were spectacular as well as Ashley Mallett described, “There was many a time when he cut at lifting deliveries, and at the precise instant he struck the ball, both his feet were well clear of the ground. I was fielding in the gully and nothing came anywhere near me, yet Freddo was cutting fiercely, the ball soaring over my head and to my left, round point”.

The famous West Australian sea breeze “Fremantle Doctor” blew the ground and added enough woes to the miseries of the Aussies who were already getting roasted by the heat of the blazing sun and the scorching stroke-play of Fredericks.

Fredericks' bat was 'something between a rapier and a bludgeon'

According to Ashley Mallett, “The Fremantle Doctor added to Australia's woes, for the wind reached 50kph. Add that to the speed of Freddo's ferocious strokes. Surely the good doctor, who with his cooling hand comes to the rescue of the people of Perth every afternoon in summer, could have given Freddo a calming pill to save the poor Aussies from a terrible hiding”.

One of Thomson's deliveries that day was clocked at 99.68 miles per hour by university researchers, and the speed with which it flew off Fredericks’ bat was unimaginable.

Terry Jenner, the twelfth man for the match, was fielding at point as a substitute fielder said, “I'd been sitting there with my feet, up but then I came onto the ground, I think it was for Ross Edwards, my laces were undone so I had to do them up, get out there and go straight to forward point and the first ball off (Gary) Gilmour was a massive square drive that curved towards me, I got down and it spun straight past me and went for four....bloody embarrassing - when you're the 12th man and that's what happens to you.

"But he was awesome, Fredericks. He played hooks, cuts, drives, every shot in the book. It wasn't a mug attack by a long shot, and it was just an awesome innings, one of those innings of a lifetime really ... unbelievable!”

Fredericks notched up his fifty off 33 balls and by lunch, West Indies were 130 for 1. After lunch, one staggering stroke followed after another at a rapid pace. Fredericks scored his hundred off 71 balls and when he was caught at slip after tea, he made 169 runs off 145 balls out of 258.

In his tour book, Frank Tyson wrote, “His flashing bat could be described as lying somewhere between a rapier and a bludgeon."

"His high and full backswing gave each shot a tremendous power, yet at the same time, there was finesse of execution. It would be hard to imagine a better century”.

Fredericks’ 169 outweighed the intensity of the Australian Federal Election and made December 13, 1975, all his own.

It was a big time brutality and still people talk about that blazing knock as because it is never easy to gift Lillee and Thomson buffets of embarrassments without wearing a helmet on the fastest wicket of the world. Roy Fredericks was the man to do that on that sun-kissed day at Perth.

December 13, 1975, was not an ordinary day of Test cricket.