The Shorter Wisden 2013 (39 page)

CURRAN
, KEVIN MALCOLM, died after collapsing while jogging in Harare on October 10, aged 53. Kevin Curran’s performance in Zimbabwe’s sensational
victory over Australia in their first match in senior international competition, at the 1983 World Cup, established a template for his career. On that seismic day at Trent Bridge, he made vital
runs, took a key wicket and contributed to a fine fielding performance; Curran was not a player to be kept out of the action for long. Duncan Fletcher rightly gained the plaudits for his 69 and
four wickets in that game, but Curran made 27 in a sixth-wicket partnership of 70 with his captain to rescue Zimbabwe from early calamity, then removed Allan Border. Later in the tournament, he
made 62 against West Indies at Edgbaston, then hit 73 and claimed three for 65 – both one-day international career-bests – against India at Tunbridge Wells. Fletcher recalled:
“Kevin always genuinely believed that any difficult situation was a challenge to be overcome.” Curran also played in the 1987 World Cup in India and Pakistan, but made little impact:
his international career ended after 11 matches, with 287 runs at 26, and nine wickets at 44.

Instantly recognisable by his surfer-style blond hair, Curran was a hard-hitting presence in the middle order, bowled fast-medium (and occasionally quicker), and was an electrifying presence in
the field. “As a youngster, his returns to the keeper would be scrappy – until it was run-out time,” said Fletcher. “Then the ball would be right above the stumps from the
outfield, or a direct hit when closer in.” In England, Curran was best known for the 15 seasons he spent with Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire, when he was one of the best all-rounders in
the domestic game. An Irish passport – his paternal grandfather had emigrated to Southern Rhodesia in 1902 – meant he did not count as an overseas player, and he joined Gloucestershire
in 1985, when his 52 wickets helped their rise from last in the Championship to third.
Wisden
felt a pace attack of Courtney Walsh, David Lawrence and Curran might be the most formidable
the county had ever deployed. He was admirably consistent, passing 1,000 runs in four successive seasons, and adding 65 wickets in 1988, and 60 in 1990, after which Gloucestershire released him
amid stories of dressing-room disharmony. Senior coach Eddie Barlow insisted Curran’s departure was “in the best interests of the club”.

He decamped to Northamptonshire, where his friend Allan Lamb was captain: “He was an abrasive sort of player, but an excellent team man. He got up people’s noses a bit, and you
definitely wanted him on your side.” Curran contributed fully to four successive top-five Championship finishes, and took three for 41 in the NatWest Trophy final victory over Leicestershire
in 1992. “He always felt he was better than anybody else, and I liked that,” said Lamb. “He would always say ‘give me the ball’ if we needed a wicket, or
‘I’ll bat at three’.” Lamb also remembered a subtle motivator: “He got on really well with Curtly Ambrose, and he was good for him. Sometimes he’d say: ‘I
think I’m bowling faster than you this morning, Curtly.’”

In 1993, Curran finished second in the first-class bowling averages, with 67 wickets at 19, including a career-best seven for 47 against Yorkshire at Harrogate. He succeeded Rob Bailey as
Northamptonshire captain at the end of the 1997 season after topping 1,000 runs that summer – including a career-best 159 against Glamorgan at Abergavenny – but the club endured a poor
time under his leadership, and he was relieved of the post a year later. He returned for just one more season. He played for Natal in 1988-89, and Boland in 1994-95 and 1997-98, and finished his
career in 1999 with 15,740 runs in 324 games at nearly 37, including 25 centuries, and 605 wickets at 27. When Zimbabwe achieved Test status in 1992, Curran was completing a ten-year residency
qualification in the UK, and decided not to return. He did, however, fill a number of key roles in Zimbabwe cricket, initially as assistant coach of the national team, then as Phil Simmons’s
successor as head coach, between 2005 and 2007. He had also coached Namibia and been head of the Zimbabwe Cricket Academy. He went on to become a national selector, and at the time of his death was
coach of Mashonaland Eagles.

He leaves three sons, who all inherited their father’s talent. Tom played for Surrey Second Eleven in 2012, Sam was Zimbabwe’s junior cricketer of the year in 2011, and Ben has also
displayed great potential. Mashonaland chief executive Vimbai Mapukute said of Curran: “I have yet to meet a man more passionate about cricket in this country.”

CURRIE
, MARGARET JOYCE, died on October 5, aged 80. Joyce Currie (later Inness) was a bowler from Christchurch, quite speedy for women’s cricket in the
1950s, who played three Tests for New Zealand. She opened the bowling in a soggy draw at The Oval in 1954, and won two further caps when England toured in 1957-58, taking three for 36 in the First
Test at Christchurch. During her England tour Currie claimed six for 22 – from 20 overs – against the West at Torquay.

DALVI
, MADHAV MANGESH, who died on October 1, aged 87, made a remarkable start to his first-class career late in 1947, following innings of 81, 63 not out and
67 in a Bombay festival tournament with 150 not out on his Ranji Trophy debut, for Bombay against Sind, then hitting 143 against Maharashtra. Thus after four matches he averaged 168. He
couldn’t keep that up, although he did score 110 in the 1948-49 Ranji Trophy final victory over Baroda. He lost his place in a strong side in the late 1950s, but reappeared as
Vidarbha’s captain in 1961-62, making centuries in what turned out to be his last two first-class games before a car accident ended his playing career.

DHARMA
, PANDIAN KUMAR, was found dead at his home in Chennai on June 20. He was 20, and had seemingly committed suicide. Dharma made two one-day appearances
for Tamil Nadu, and the day before his death had been playing a club final at the Chidambaram Stadium, in which he was apparently disappointed to take only one wicket. “He was a promising
youngster who turned into a fine all-rounder,” said Sridharan Sriram, the former Indian one-day player who was Dharma’s club captain.

DICK
, IAN ROBINSON, died on September 5, aged 86. He captained the Western Australian Colts against the 1950-51 MCC tourists, and later that season played as a
batsman against Queensland in what was to be his only state match, despite scoring nearly 9,000 runs for his club, South Perth. A gifted hockey player, Dick played for WA from 1946 to 1959, and
represented Australia in all their internationals for a decade from 1948, captaining them in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, when he scored the first goal of the tournament. His brother, Alec, played
once for WA in 1948-49, and he was a cousin of Alex Robinson, who also died in 2012.

FORMSTONE
, GEORGE HAYNES, died on December 30, aged 81. Haynes Formstone, from Wrexham, devoted his life to cricket in Denbighshire, where he was honorary
secretary for more than 50 years and rarely missed a game. A special match to celebrate his half-century was staged at Brymbo in July 2006.

FORTE
, Major JOHN KNOX,
MBE
, who died on August 9, aged 96, kept cricket alive in Corfu, where he was the British vice-consul from 1958
to 1971. His initiatives included an appeal to readers of the
Daily Telegraph
, which produced 50 bats and 350 balls, and a pleasant history of cricket on the island,
Play’s the
Thing
, in 1988. This included tales of a batsman who was a heavy scorer, even though his ample stomach forced him to bat one-handed, and an unsuccessful attempt to introduce women’s
cricket, which was soon banned by the military governor after a lady batsman was smacked on the nose by a bouncer. By 2012 there were 14 cricket clubs in Greece, 11 of them on Corfu. Forte
(pronounced “Fort”) also produced several travel books and guides, which helped popularise the island as a holiday destination. As a 15-year-old Bradfield schoolboy, he had taken two
for four at Lord’s.

FUARD
, MOHAMED ABDAL HASSAIN, died on July 28, aged 75. Abu Fuard was a prime mover behind Sri Lanka’s push for Test status: he enlisted the help of
prominent politicians, including the cabinet minister Gamini Dissanayake, who joined the national cricket board and added gravitas to the Sri Lankan delegation at the ICC. Sri Lanka finally became
a Test-playing country in 1981-82 – “the greatest day in the life of Abu Fuard”, according to his friend, the journalist Elmo Rodrigopulle. As a player, Fuard had been a tall,
canny off-spinner, armed with what would probably now be called a doosra. In April 1961 he impressed the Australian team en route for England, dismissing Bill Lawry and Bob Simpson; their captain,
Richie Benaud, said he wished he could take Fuard with him for the Ashes. In all, he represented Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) for 15 years, taking six for 31 for the Board President’s XI against
an International XI, composed mainly of English county players, in March 1968. He was Sri Lanka’s manager/coach at the inaugural World Cup in 1975, and assistant manager for the next one, in
1979, when they beat India; he was also in charge when Sri Lanka won their first Test, against India in Colombo in September 1985. Fuard had a ten-year spell as a national selector, for a while
chairing the panel, and was also instrumental in redeveloping grounds – particularly the Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy – to make them suitable for international cricket.

GAUNT
, RONALD ARTHUR, died on March 30, aged 78. Red-haired and robust, Ron “Pappy” Gaunt – whose nickname came from the American
bantamweight boxer “Pappy” Gault – was arguably the cream of the crop of fast bowlers who made life miserable for visiting batsmen on the peppery Perth pitch in the second half of
the 1950s. Broad-shouldered and unrelenting, he had a smooth action which hid a wicked bumper among his customary outswingers. John Rutherford, Western Australia’s first home-grown Test
cricketer, remembered him as “fit as a bull and the quickest bowler in the state team of his time”. He recalled the 20-year-old Gaunt’s first match, against Queensland in 1955-56,
when he bowled Neil Harvey’s older brother, Mick, with a lightning full toss which sent stumps and bails hurtling towards the keeper. The following season he cut a swathe through New South
Wales at Sydney: a career-best seven for 104 was made up exclusively of Test players. As a left-handed batsman, he generally aimed to hit the ball as hard as he could in the arc between long-on and
midwicket; occasionally it worked, and he took 20 off an over of Ian Crowden’s off-breaks at Hobart in 1961-62.

But it was Gaunt’s misfortune to be competing for a Test spot with Alan Davidson, Ray Lindwall, Ian Meckiff and Graham McKenzie: his three caps were spread over six years. Called to South
Africa as an injury replacement in 1957-58, he bowled Dick Westcott in his first over at Durban, but had to wait nine hours for his next success, eventually removing the somnolent Jackie McGlew. A
side strain robbed him of a month’s cricket early in the 1961 tour of England, but good form later on, including six for 50 against Somerset, earned him a chance in the final Test at The
Oval, where he removed Raman Subba Row, Ted Dexter and Ken Barrington. John Arlott enthused that Gaunt “made the ball dart and dive about like a swallow chasing flies”. And finally, at
Adelaide in 1963-64, after being flayed by Eddie Barlow and Graeme Pollock, Gaunt rebounded by dismissing Colin Bland and Peter Carlstein in successive overs. These three appearances, plus two
second-string tours of New Zealand were scant reward for his talents.

In 1960 Gaunt, who worked as a sales representative for Walpamur Paints, took his colour cards across the Nullarbor Plain to Melbourne, in search of further employment and cricket opportunities.
There he cut his run-up significantly – and his pace slightly – without reducing his effectiveness, and became an important element of the Victorian attack for four seasons. He remained
a significant influence at the Footscray club, where his wise advice helped shape four future Australian bowlers in Alan Hurst, Merv Hughes, Colin Miller and Tony Dodemaide, who praised
Gaunt’s “patient and knowledgeable” skills as a coach.

GHOSH
, HAROLD, who died on January 17, aged 75, had a long career in Indian domestic cricket, which stretched from December 1951, when he was 15, until
1974-75. Initially a left-arm spinner, Ghosh became a solid left-hand batsman who made four Ranji Trophy centuries, the highest an undefeated 166 for Railways against a Delhi side including the
young Bishan Bedi, on Christmas Day 1965. The nearest he came to representative honours were two matches for North Zone against touring teams in the 1960s.

GIBSON
, DAVID, died on June 7, aged 76. Tall, well-built and able to generate pace and bounce from a rhythmic run-up and a side-on action that made the purists
purr, David Gibson had what it took to become a fast bowler at the highest level. He was useful with the bat, too, and his athletic movement around the field hinted at a man who had represented
England schools’ rugby XVs at full-back. But Gibson’s career was stalled at a key moment by a knee injury, and he was never quite the same bowler. Instead, he became a respected coach,
all the while leaving former Surrey team-mates to wonder what might have been. The full promise of Gibson, who hailed from Mitcham, was underlined on his Championship debut, at the age of 21,
against Gloucestershire at Bristol in July 1957. He took ten for 132 but, such was Surrey’s strength in the year of a sixth successive title, that he played just once more that summer; they
were match figures he would never better.

He made a more substantial contribution in 1958, deputising when illness sidelined Alec Bedser. He claimed 37 wickets, and came to the fore as Surrey began to rebuild when their years of
domination ended. In 1960, Gibson took 90 wickets at 17, including seven for 26 against Derbyshire at The Oval. It remained his career-best, and earned him his county cap. There were 95 wickets in
1961, when he was in with a chance of international recognition. “The selectors were certainly looking closely at him after those two outstanding seasons,” said Micky Stewart. But he
suffered his first serious knee injury in 1962, and attention switched elsewhere. He recovered sufficiently to have another magnificent season in 1965, taking 86 wickets at 20 and scoring 996 runs
at 34. Against Leicestershire at The Oval he was bowled by Peter Marner two short of what would have been his only first-class century. “He had the ability to bat at six or seven if he had
really wanted to,” said Stewart. Further knee trouble in 1966, however, more or less put paid to his career. There were just a handful of appearances thereafter, including a remarkable
performance for the Second Eleven at Guildford in 1969, when he finished with figures of 16.4–10–13–10 as Sussex were skittled for 35. Bob Willis and Robin Jackman remained
wicketless.