Largely unheralded when he made his Test debut at 34, Trevor 'Cracka' Hohns played a handy role in the Ashes-winning 1989 squad, chipping in with some useful wickets, notably Ian Botham in the fourth Test at Old Trafford, bowled for a duck as he missed a charging hoick. But ageing, innocuous spinners were ten-a-penny in Australian cricket in those days, and the selectors - whose ranks Hohns would later join - went back to the likes of Greg Matthews and the two Peters, Sleep and Taylor, before Shane Warne wobbled on to the scene a few years later. A rebel tourist who made two playing trips to South Africa in the mid-1980s, he later captained Queensland in his final season of first-class cricket in 1990-91. However, he made his greatest impact as a selector, particularly during a decade as chairman, and was in charge for Australia's record breaking that included 16 Test wins in succession and the 1999 and 2003 World Cups. A generally quiet man who made regular tough decisions - he ended the careers of Ian Healy and Mark Waugh and stripped Steve Waugh of the one-day captaincy before each player felt they were ready - he retired in 2006 to focus on his sporting goods business.
Cricinfo staff