MASSIE’S SWING……….HIRWANI’S SPIN

ON June 22, 1972 a 25-year-old Australian right-arm fast-medium swing bowler made his Test debut against England at Lord’s in London. It was the second game of a five-match series between the old rivals with England holding the upper hand, having won the first Test at Old Trafford by 89 runs on a seamer-friendly pitch.Robert Arnold Lockyer (Bob) Massie was part of a young side led by the astute Ian Chappell who was looking to turn the tables on the English and level the series, hoping to eventually regain the Ashes they had surrendered two years earlier.
In that same year (1970), while playing in the Scottish League, he was offered a trial by Northamptonshire but was rejected. His inclusion in the party to England was mainly influenced by figures of 6/27 in 11 overs for Australia against the Gary Sobers-led Rest of the World team at Sydney in 1971-72.
On the first day of the match, Massie was an extremely happy man. Not only was he making his debut at Lord’s-the mecca of cricket-but the day was wet and grey which was perfectly conducive for his type of bowling. To make him even more elated, England won the toss and for some benign reason decided to bat first.
He shared the new ball with the then fastest bowler in the world, Dennis Lillee, who had the batsmen hurrying and scurrying at the other end, but it was all Massie’s Magic. The seasoned opener Geoff Boycott was his first victim — undone by a superb swinging yorker that uprooted his stumps.
His first spell went well into the afternoon, and when he was finally given a rest he had bowled 20 consecutive overs and had taken three wickets for 43 runs. When he returned, an English revival was taking place as Tony Grieg and the wicketkeeper Alan Knott had scraped together a 96-run partnership for the sixth wicket.
Before the day was over, Massie removed them both as they edged out-swingers to eagerly waiting fielders and in the process ended his first day of Test cricket with the impressive figures of five for 75 off 28 overs.
Bowling with impeccable control and devastating swing again on the second morning, he quickly removed Ray Illingworth, John Snow and Norman Gifford to claim an incredible eight for 84-the second best innings figures on debut after his fellow Australian Albert Trott, who spun his way to eight for 43 against England at Adelaide in 1894-95.
England were bowled out for 272 and soon had Australia on the ropes, removing the two openers Keith Stackpole and Bruce Francis with only seven runs on the board. However, a flawless and fashionable 131 by the youthful Greg Chappell saw the Aussies to 308 all out, giving them a lead of 36 on first innings.
On the third day’s play over 30,000 spectators packed into the ground to see the end of the Australian innings and see Massie bamboozle the English with greater effect second time around.
Bowling unchanged from the “nursery end,” he baffled all the batsmen with his unerring accuracy and late swerve. Lillee was racing in with venom and claimed the first two wickets– Boycott (6) and the number three, Brian Lockhurst (4), to leave England at 16 for two.
Afterwards it was all Massie as he soon had the other opener, John Edrich, caught at the wicket and Basil D’Oliveira and Tony Grieg edging out-swingers to slip, plunging England to a tortured 31 for five.
So pronounced was his away movement, he opted to go round the wicket, finding that when he bowled from over the wicket to the right-hander the ball moved too much, too early, to have its best effect.
At the end of day three he had taken seven second innings wickets for a miserly 38 runs and eventually added the last England scalp to claim eight for 53 — returning match figures of 16 for 137– the best by a bowler on debut at the time and the third best overall after the Englishman Jim Laker (19/90 in 1953) and Sydney Barnes (17 for 159 in 1913-14).
England, bundled out for 116, set Australia 81 for victory which they got for the loss of two wickets.
Massie, for his part, could never reproduce his magic and in the remaining three matches of the series could only muster a mean seven wickets. He played a further two Tests at home later in 1972 and again his returns were minimal.
He also toured the Caribbean in 1973 but did not play in any of the Tests, even with Lillee being injured, since the conditions were not suited for his craft. Soon he was omitted from his state side, Western Australia, and his international career ended in the space of nine months having taken 31 wickets in six Tests at an average of 20.87 runs per wicket.
The other bowler who had a sensational Test debut with match figures of 16 for 136 — edging out Massie by a single run — is the Indian right-arm wrist spinner Nirendra Hirwani, who played his first match against the West Indies at the Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk, Madras (now Chennai) in 1987-88.
The stockily built, bespectacled 19 year old was virtually plucked from nowhere to compete in the fourth and final Test of the series which the West Indies were leading one-nil. He had replaced the left-arm orthodox spinner, Maninder Singh, who had snarled only two expensive wickets in the three preceding Tests. His spinning partner was the off-break bowler, Arshad Ayube, who played throughout the series.
India, desperately needing to win the match to level the series, ensured that the pitch was heavily in favour of the spinners. According to Wisden’s correspondent, Dicky Rutnagur, for all of Hirwani’s exploits, “he was aided, it must be stressed, by a deplorably underprepared pitch.”
In addition to the state of the pitch and his clever control and flight, he was assisted in great measure by batsmen who were determined to attack at all costs and paid the ultimate price. It is instructive to note also that while Hirwani was wreaking havoc and creating history, the West Indies specialist spinner Clyde Butts had match figures of nought for 124 off 45 overs, mainly because he was bowling to batsmen who were excellent players of spin.
India had first use of the wicket and compiled a challenging 382, built mainly on a typically aggressive century by the all-rounder Kapil Dev, batting at number seven in the order. When the West Indies batted, Dev and the left-arm spinning all-rounder Ravi Shastri, quickly disposed of the openers Desmond Haynes and Phil Simmons paving the way for Hirwani to mesmerise his opponents.
Captain Viv Richards (68) and Ritchie Richardson (36), played attackingly but West Indies folded for a disappointing 184, surrendering to India a massive lead of 198,narrowly avoiding the embarrassment of being asked to follow on by a meagre two runs.
For his part Hirwani grabbed eight for 61 off 18.3 overs, as he teased and tempted the batsmen into false shots. Several of his wickets were taken as batsmen edged his big-turning leg-breaks to the wicketkeeper or slip.
India went for quick runs in the second innings and closed at 217 for eight wickets declared, setting the West Indies 416 to win.
From all indications the plan was to go aggressively at Hirwani, but the ploy failed miserably. He stuck to his task admirably as India bundled out the visitors for a paltry 160 engineered by Gus Logie’s 67 and Clyde Butts’s 38, to give India victory by a huge 255 runs and a share in the series.
Hirwani’s second strike gave him figures of eight for 75 off 15.2 overs and to date the best match figures on debut of 16 for 136.
In the second innings he had four batsmen stumped, including Jeffery Dujon who suffered a similar fate in the first innings. All told, the Indian wicketkeeper Kiran More effected five stumpings in the second innings and six in the match– both of them world records that still stand.
Hirwani played his next three Test matches in India and took a further 20 wickets and in the process totalled 36 victims after four Tests. However, once he left India, he found it extremely difficult to succeed and could have only mustered another 30 wickets in 13 games.
Once Anil Kumble arrived on the scene, Hirwani was relegated to domestic cricket and finished his international sojourn with 66 wickets at 31.10 runs apiece from 17 Tests.