The ultimate team man
The real architect of Australia's cricket resurgence has been chairman of selectors Laurie Sawle
Mark Ray
08-Feb-2016
The Ultimate Team Man
From the Sunday Age, 29 Jan 1995
The real architect of Australia's cricket resurgence has been
chairman of selectors Laurie Sawle. Mark Ray reports.
Although this is only the fourth test of this Ashes series, most
eyes and minds are already focused on the coming series against
the West Indies. That applies most to one of the shrewdest
observers in Australian cricket, chairman of selectors Laurie
Sawle.
This week, at the Adelaide Oval, Sawle watched play in the
fourth tests in the same seat from which he saw Australia fail by
one run to take an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the last series against
the West Indies two years ago. The memory hurts.
"Two years ago I sat in this same seat and saw us get to within
one bloody run of beating the West Indies in a series," Sawle
says, "I suppose you shouldn't have to rely on a last wicket
stand to get you that close, but a win is a win."
If Australia does finally defeat the West Indies - becoming the
first side to do so in 25 year the cycle of rebuilding Australian
cricket that began in the dark days of the early to mid-1980s
will be complete, the last mountain finally conquered.
If so, it is likely that legspinner Shane Warne will have played
a crucial role. Fore Sawle, the man credited by former selector
John Benaud as "the most unrecognised person in Australian
cricket" and widely considered the leading architect of that
rebuilding, the satisfaction will be intense, not least because
on of his priorities in his 10 years as chairman has been to find
a Test-class leg-spinner.
Sawle is the classic "quiet Achiever", a self-effacing, shy man
with a sharp mind and a desert-dry wit whose influence over the
regeneration of Australian cricket, from Test to under-17s, has
been huge, although done largely from the background rather than
the foreground.
Benaud rates his former chairman's influence so highly he even
uses the term "the Sawle era", the fruits of which he says we are
seeing this season as Sawle's long term planning brings its
rewards.
Alan Crompton, chairman of the Australian Cricket Board,
describes Sawle's contribution over the past decade as
"maginificent".
"He has brought an enormous amnount of wisdom and stability to
our game," Crompton says.
From the days in the midd-1980s when England and the West Indies
were beating Autralia, when captain Kim Hughes resigned in tears,
when many senior Sheffield Shield players defected on rebel tours
of South Africa and when the big three of Greg Chappell, Dennis
Lillee and Rod Marsh retired, Australian cricket has gradually
regained its strength and purpose. Laurie Sawle has been a major
player in that resurgence.
A few of the things Sawle has pushed through in his dual role as
selector and ACB member include: the resurgence of spin bowling,
especailly leg-spin, long-term selection policies, the linking of
youth cricket at state and national level with the senior
selection process through talent-spotting, the establishment of
the AIS cricket academy and the specailist skills clinics run
through it by a host of former Test players , and the
introduction of the Australian XI games in Hobart for fringe
players.
Sawle has had a lot to do with all of these intiatives. In many
cases he has been the leading light.
"Three things have characterised Laurie's work as a selector,"
Benaud says. "He has always said stability was important. He is a
good long term planner. He's a very good chairman because he
doesn't press his opinions on the rest of the panel.
"He allows the other selectors to fully express their views and
the discussions are always open and constructive. In my years on
the panel under Laurie, there was never a raised voice and never
formal vote. It was very enjoyable. The third thing he has been
strong on has been youth cricket."
After a modest career as an opening batsman for Western
Australia in its early years in the Shield, and a successful
career at the University club in Perth, Sawle, now 69, became a
national selector in 1982 and chairman two years later.
Sawle became a selector during a period he describes as perhaps
the lowest ever for Australian cricket. The panel at the time
worked in a desperate scatter-gun way, and at one stage there
were more than 40 current or ex-Test players among the 70 or so
Shield players in action.
When Sawle, known from is University days as "the Colonel",
became chairman, he stablised selection policy. The selector's
job was to identify the 16 or so players capable of playing Test
cricket, pick them and encourage them to feel relatively secure
so they could learn and develop.
The likes of David Bon, Dean Jones, and Geoff Marsh are classic
examples.
Benaud says Sawle was never obsessed with finding players, whose
behaviour was beyond reproach. "Lawrie was always alert to
character, but it was never a case of players having to obey the
Ten Commandments or else. What he was after were players who were
mentally focused."
The first major success of the rebuildign was winning the 1987
World Cup in India and Pakistan, but Sawle rates the 1989 Ashes
tour as the highlight of his involvement, not least beacuse he
was there as manager.
That 4-0 thrashing began domination of the old enemy that
continures this summer. Such has been Australia's dominance that
England captain Mike Atherton has alluded to the success of
Australia's rebuilding programs and, in articles he has written
this summer for "The Daily Telegraph" in London, has named Sawle
as a key figure in that process Recognition for "the Colonel"
seems to be coming at last.
"The 1989 tour was a highlight for me," says Sawle. "We wanted
badly to get the Ashes back and it was hard to balance the team.
There were a few unlucky players who missed out but that is just
part of the job.
"After losing the first game we won everything. The '89 tour was
the most satisfying for me from a selection point of view and
because I was able to see it through as manager."
The Australian Cricket Board had to ask the reticent Sawle three
times to manage the 1989 tour before he accepted.
"It was the enormity of the job and I wasn't sure how I would
handle it all." Here his characteristic self-effacing chuckle
breaks in.
"I'm glad I did. It was the experience of a lifetime."
Sawle has had such a profound influence at many levels of
Australian cricket because he is a member of the Australian
Cricket Board executive as well as chairman of selectors.
It is a link between two decision making bodies that he has used
to bring structure to the game.
It was Sawle who introduced the practice of one of the national
selectors chairing the panel that chooses under-19 national
teams. John Benaud did that for some time and now Steve Bernard
is involved.
"It means the national philosophies are transferred to the youth
teams," says Benaud.
"I was most involved in the under-19s from the mid-80's for six
or seven years," Sawle says. "I thought it was important for us
to know what talent was comingthrough so that we could fast-tracj
them. Players like the Waugh twins, Ian Healy and Mark Taylor all
came through the system."
Typically, Sawle sees the Cricket Academy as another aspect of
the wider structure rather than the ultimate example.
"The academy is only an adjunct," he says. "You need a structure
in place to get the talent to put into the academy.
"We are very happy with out youth program now. It helped set up
our strength today."
Sawle is committed to finding bowlers who move the ball away
from the bat, especailly the leg-spinners and swing bowlers.
He was a prime mover in the ACB's push in the late 1980s to have
the state associations do away with defensive 100-overs-a-day
club cricket in favour of open rules where taking wickets was
as important as scoring runs.
The fruits of Sawle's preoccupations are evident in this
Adelaide Test. There are two legspinners in the Australia team
for the firt itme in more than 20 years. But then there are also
two former leg-spinners on the selection panel, Jim Higgs and
Trevor Hohns.
The swing-bowling situation is not as healthy, with Damien
Fleming the only one of any consistent achievement in the game
today.
Sawle admits he is lost for an answer as to why that is.
Should Warne, Fleming, and perhaps the leg-spinner Peter
McIntyre contribute to an Australian series win in the Caribbean
in the next few months, there will be no more satisifed man than
Laurie Sawle.
"We'll have a better balanced team this time than for the last
tour there," he says.
"Better spin bowling and better batting. Our chances must be
good."