OREILLY_ON_S-WAUGH_01FEB87

Bill O'Reilly on Steve Waugh's success.

It`s a comforting thing to say "I told you so."

How easy it is to give advice. How hard to take it?

Steve Waugh`s success this season in all three departments of his game gives me the right to indulge in the foregoing.

My friends will remember full well that my immediate reaction to my first sight of the gifted young NSW all-rounder was generous and comprehensive.

He was, I said then, the best kid I had seen for years anywhere in the cricket world and that he should be given full official recognition.

I even went so far as to say that his proud mother should be asked to pack his bag immediately so that he might join the Australian team about to be chosen for the official tour of England under Border`s captaincy.

That did not happen.

Obviously he was much too young to be allowed out of his mother`s sight, so the selectors thought.

He had to be toughened up - get a few bruises and scars on his chassis before the national selectors could recognise his ability.

Fortunately he is still about the game`s stony ridges and is helping like mad to make it look a healthy sport.

I`m sorry that he missed out on the vital opportunity to blossom forth on that English tour like other Aussie kids did before - noticeably Don Bradman, Stan McCabe and Neil Harvey. Each of them went away as an outstanding boy of promise and returned home a fully accredited champion ready to handle Australia`s cricket problems as they arose.

There were others - two of whom I had the good fortune to handle in their teens as members of the St George District team with headquarters at Hurstville Oval where the friendly Lou Dunbar, a digger of World War I, used to turn on a pitch fit for Valhalla.

It took me at least a minute to recognise the great ability of two shy kids who lined up there in the local side not long after my return from the 1938 tour of England where, in the course of the one innings in the final Test, I bowled 85 overs while Len Hutton leisurely scored his record-breaking 364 runs to set his England-Australia Test record.

It would have been an easy matter for me then to have forgotten about grade cricket altogether, but the presence of those fabulous kids, Arthur Morris and Ray Lindwall, compelled me to put my head down and tear in with a team it was a pleasure to lead.

Seeing the curly, fair-headed Morris for the first time at the club`s nets I was highly impressed with the earnestness of his efforts to appeal to me as a slow up-in-the-air left-arm spinner who could bowl the lot, including the Chinaman, which in case you unaware of it, is the name the initiated Englishman gives to a wrong`un bowled from the left hand.

Fleetwood Smith was its pastmaster.

On the strength of a couple of fine bowling performances with the Poidevin-Gray side and probably the A.W. Green Shield and with the Combined High School XI per favour of Canterbury High School, young Morris was an already acknowledged member of the St George Firsts, batting about number seven and using his bowling talents, when I met him.

Having been thoroughly impressed with his left-hand batting ability in a couple of down-the-list innings in which he had shown signs of an inclination to annihilate the old scoring board with a hook shot that was reminiscent of McCabe at his best, I decided that this top-line colt was due for redirection.

On that afternoon at Parramatta Oval when I said, "Put the pads on Morris and Steedman," I half expected the "Who, me?" which came from the youngster, his eyes wide with amazement. "Yes you. Get them on and out you go." From that moment onward Australia had a famous Test opening batsman on its hands.

A month later he opened for NSW at the SCG and scored a beautiful hundred in each innings against Queensland.

He never once looked back.

He was a natural if ever I saw one.

I sacked him as a bowler.

He had much more to think about.

Ray Lindwall was an entirely different subject.

Like Morris, having been lucky enough to have attended Marist Brothers High School at Kogarah and Darlinghurst, he had been solidly grounded in the game`s principles and was already an eye-catching fast bowler, highly competent right-handed batsman and brilliant all-round fieldsman - indeed a boy just quietly looking for the opportunity to shine.

He shone all right.

Still a schoolboy, I made sure never to make heavy demands on his strength - just giving him enough work to let him bowl at top speed every time I threw the ball to him.

I am quite sure he never did forgive me for dropping him down the batting list. He would gladly have swapped places with his mate, Artie Morris.

Lindwall went on to become the greatest Australian fast bowler of his time and mine. Like Morris, he never looked back either. His career was a credit to his country.

And here am I still skiting about the two kids who prolonged my own active career in the game because I was so unashamedly certain that each had a monster part to play in the future of Australian cricket.

Now you know why there is a soft spot in my heart for Waugh.

And while in this pensive mood I warn - I reject the word advise - that Steve`s mother has three other kids at home like him.

That`s comforting news for them who need cheering up just now.

[Personal note: I live about five minutes walk from Hurstville Oval. It still has the reputation of being the best batting wicket - bar none - in Sydney. It is, however, too small for first-class matches although it regularly gets used for youth representative games and the like.]

Source :: The Sun-Herald