He was daring, dashing, dynamic

IF YOU were to make a list of some of the most popular, and also successful, cricketers of the 1970s, Kevin Douglas Walters would surely occupy a very prominent place. Walters, who turned 55 on December 21, was both a feature and a flavour of the most memorable decade in the history of Test cricket, a period which saw outstanding batsmen, brutal fast bowlers, superb spinners and remarkable wicketkeepers rubbing shoulders with one another. Test cricket was at its best then and Walters decidedly the darling down under.

They adored Walters in Australia because he was a people's cricketer who took the art of attacking-batting to a higher plane. It is almost twenty years now since Walters was last seen in action. A string of world-class batsmen have represented Australia since then but Walters remains unapproached; at least in terms of amazing popularity. He was a natural cricketer, a master entertainer and but for his impetuosity he would have achieved much more than he did.

He was one of the more daring, dashing, dynamic and delightful batsmen imaginable. He never played for the morrow. The crowds went berserk when Walters was at the crease. At his best he could be a devastating bat, a la Vivian Richards, one of his most illustrious contemporaries. Like the West Indian, the Aussie had a reputation to cause the bowlers pass sleepless nights. He was a match-winner in every sense, one who could change the course of a match in a jiffy.

Walters never lacked shots. On the contrary, sometimes it appeared as if he had two shots for almost every ball bowled at him. It was because his basic footwork was so perfect and he had all the time in the world to execute his strokes. It was quite a sight to see Walters' full- blooded hooks on a bouncy pitch and against hostile fast bowlers. But Walters had some trouble with his backlift although bowlers hardly figured it out until he joined World Series Cricket (WSC) of Kerry Packer.

In WSC he made just one Super Test appearance and managed to score 21 unattractive runs, struggling to survive all the time. In other matches also he could not do as well as he had been expected to. There were some of the best pace bowlers of the world playing under the Packer banner who created problems for Walters with stinging yorkers and awkward bouncers on the greentops down under. They regularly bombarded him with all their potent weapons.

But it would not be right to say that Walters lacked confidence or was vulnerable against fast bowling. For he had repeatedly proved his class against the leading speedsters of his time. An impulsive, enthralling strokeplayer during his heyday, Walters had twice scored a hundred in a session in Tests and once for Australia versus Rest of the World. It was a sight for gods when Walters tore the bowlers to ribbons on those three occasions.

The first time he did it was at Port of Spain in Trinidad in 1973. It was a post-lunch session and the Test was seemingly heading for a draw when Walters wrought his miracle and enabled Ian Chappell to bring off a famous triumph. The feat was repeated against England at Perth a year later. Batting like a man possessed in the post-tea session, Walters showed incredible patience and waited till the last ball of the day to hook Bob Willis for a massive six and complete his century.

Before these three-figure knocks in a session, Walters had played a majestic innings of 102 before lunch against the powerful Rest of the World at Melbourne in 1972. It is said to be the only pre- lunch century at the MCG. But Walters' tour de force was slightly overshadowed by Garfield Sobers who later in the match essayed an unforgettable innings of 254 which compelled even Don Bradman to lose his sangfroid and go off his rocker. The Don still regards it as the greatest innings ever played in Australia.

A very bright future was forecast for Walters when he made his first-class debut for New South Wales (NSW) at 17. His rapid and remarkable progress in the heavyweight division of cricket made it abundantly clear that it was not a Cassandrian prediction. By the time he was 21 he had become a kingpin in the national team. On his Test debut against England he sent the very first ball he faced from off-spinner Fred Titmus to the cover boundary.

Walters just did not stop there. He went on to score 129 in his maiden Test innings. It was followed by scores of 22 and 115 in his next Test. Walters had well and truly arrived on the big stage. In those days his teammates used to call him ``Little Doug''. It continued for a while before one more nickname, ``Bikki'', was found out. It was comically derived from a popular song about ``twenty-weeny polka-dot bikini''. There were some more labels in store for Walters.

He became known as ``Dougie'' in the Australian dressing room while for his large number of fans in NSW he was ``Doug the Messiah''. He was so popular in NSW that every time he went to bat there was a possibility of the renowned Sydney Hill breaking apart and coming down screamingly! Walters was nothing less than a god for the cricket-lovers of NSW. In NSW he was also known as ``Hero of the Hill'' and ``Dungog Doug''.

Army call-up prevented Walters from touring South Africa with the Australian side. But very soon he enjoyed a fruitful Test rubber against the West Indies down under in 1969-70. His scores in the series were 76, 118, 110, 50, 242 and 103. When he made 242 and 103 in Sydney, he became the first ever player to score a double century and a hundred in a single Test. Sunil Gavaskar, Lawrence Rowe, Greg Chappell and Graham Gooch later joined Walters in the exclusive club.

Gavaskar reached the landmark in his very first series, and that too in the Caribbean, which India won under Ajit Wadekar in 1971. Rowe went a step further and achieved the feat on his Test appearance against New Zealand in 1972-73. Greg Chappell did it while leading an all-conquering Australian side against the West Indies in 1975-76. Gooch, of course, actually scored a triple century and a hundred in the Lord's Test against India in 1990. But it was Walters who set the trend, as it were.

Feared for his terrific consistency and prolificity, Walters somehow never performed as well in England as he did in other parts of the world. It was probably one of those things though his detractors said Walters was never comfortable in English conditions when the ball would swing just about crazily. But Walters brushed aside such reasoning, saying: ``I played some of my best cricket in England but somehow I didn't do so well in Tests. That's all.''

His international career was in danger when he entered the Packer premises (two years in WSC fetched Walters a sum of mindboggling $(Aus) 60,000). His popularity forced the NSW authorities to make him the first ever recipient of a benefit season. That was in 1980-81. Fortune seemed to be smiling again on Walters when he was recalled to play for Australia against New Zealand and India in 1980-81. It was a smashing comeback as scores of 17, 55, 107, 2, 67, 20, 33 not out, 78 and 18 not out flowed from the vintage Walters blade.

But when the Australian team for the 1981-82 Ashes series in England was announced, there was no place for Walters in it. Obviously, his past record in England was held against him. Walters was only 36 (not an old age for an established batsman), fit and in fine form as well. Shocked and surprised beyond measure at his omission, Walters announced his retirement from first-class cricket in a huff. The decision sent his still- celebrating admirers into shocked silence.

In all, Walters played 74 Tests and in 125 innings he scored 5357 runs at 48.26, including 15 centuries and 33 fifties. He also took 49 wickets at 29.08 with his medium-pace swing bowling. There was no question of Walters leading Australia. The Chappell brothers, first Ian and then Greg, captained Australia in the 1970s which saw Walters in all his glory. The Chappells always admitted that Walters was their key batsman. ``In a series Doug plays a couple of match-winning innings which have to be seen to be believed,'' said Ian Chappell once.

Vigorous practice and training never moved Walters to anything more than an odd throwaway joke or two. ``All these physical jerks would be great if we were thinking of entering for the Olympic Games,'' he would say. When the Australian side arrived in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1977 for a short Test series, Walters could not help joking: ``I don't know about you blokes but this stop I think I'll confine the sprint work to between the foyer and the bar. The long distance stuff will have to be from the restaurant to my room.''

Walters has had a splendid sense of humour. In his playing days it helped him dominate the team dressing rooms, coaches, meetings and parties. Walters always meant a lot to his side, whether it was Australia or NSW. Sobers was his boyhood hero and in his salad days he was often seen imitating the great man's left-hand play, both in practice and in light matches. Fond of drinking, smoking and bridge, Walters was indeed one of the most colourful characters of the game.

In the first week of December 1994 he became the first sports personality to be inducted into the Hall of Fame at a club house on the Central Coast in the north of Sydney. It just went to show his dazzling popularity which continues to be intact even today. There was some mystique about Walters the batsman and Walters the man which affected those who saw him in action, those who came in to contact and those who followed his glittering career.

HARESH PANDYA

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