Ashes Heroes No 45: Craig McDermott

With apologies for the delay, here is the latest in our series on the men who shaped the Ashes. Frank Tyson was quite a popular choice as No 46 last week, to judge from the comments. I wonder if this week's ginger destroyer is as fondly remembered?

Craig McDermott was only a teenager when he was selected for Australia's Ashes squad in 1985, a bright young hope from Queensland to replace the fiery veteran Dennis Lillee. Many had thought that his career would lie in athletics, particularly when he came third in the triple jump in the state championships. He was also a fine schoolboy rugby player, but ultimately made the right decision to concentrate on cricket.

Even so, his selection in England as a strike bowler rather than just travelling for the experience was something of a surprise. True, this was a low point in Australian cricket history and the beginning of a period of rebuilding, but it seemed like a huge gamble to give a lanky youth, who had just turned 20, a share of the new ball for the first Test with Geoff Lawson rather than Jeff Thomson, the 35-year-old veteran playing in his final Ashes series.

McDermott, who had taken ten wickets in his first two Tests, against West Indies the winter before, let no one down at Headingley, even if Australia were thumped. He got Graham Gooch leg-before for five, had David Gower caught behind for 17 and later added the wickets of Mike Gatting and Paul Downton. But he could find no way past Tim Robinson's broad bat and the opener's big hundred ultimately set England up for a five-wicket win.

McDermott got his own back at Lord's in the second Test, trapping Robinson for six in a first-innings haul of six for 70. He then got Gooch and Gower cheaply again in the second innings as Australia levelled the series. Four more wickets followed in the drawn third Test before McDermott came into his own at Old Trafford. Defending 257, Australia seemed to have only one bowler as England built a large lead. Lawson, Bob Holland, Simon O'Donnell and Greg Matthews bowled 105 wicketless overs between them, but at the other end the flame-haired teenager was taking eight for 141, three of them clean bowled.

He was the third youngest bowler to take an eight-wicket haul and could have taken all ten if Matthews hadn't run out Lamb. Gower declared once the ninth wicket fell and the match was drawn after Australia batted better in the second innings.

With Gower's batting coming to life in the final two Tests, England won the series 3-1 but McDermott was undeniably the find of the summer. In six Tests, he took 30 wickets - one fewer than Ian Botham but eight more than the next best - at an impressive strike rate of one every 47 balls. He would have had more if Australia hadn't lost the last two Tests by an innings. He was deservedly named as one of Wisden's five cricketers of the year.

England won his next Ashes Test by an innings as well, at Melbourne in 1986, with McDermott taking four for 83 in his only Test of the series. Already the frustrating string of injuries that would limit him to 71 Tests in 12 years were taking their toll. He missed the entire 1989 Ashes and the first three Tests of the 1991-92 series, by which time Australia had completed their transformation from zeroes to heroes. How would the older, wiser and more fragile McDermott fit into a side that had grown in his absence?

Almost perfectly is the answer. In the final two Tests of that series, McDermott made up for lost time, taking seven wickets at Adelaide and 11 on an ideal pitch at Perth, which gave him new career-best innings figures of eight for 97. He also made a career-best 42 not out with the bat, using a style beautifully described in Wisden as having "the subtletly of a round-house swinging drunk".

McDermott played only twice on the 1993 Ashes tour (a twisted bowel this time) and was wicketless, so by the time that England again visited Australia in 1994-5, McDermott, the fearless youngster almost a decade earlier, was a grizzled grouchy veteran of nearly 30, with only David Boon still in the side from the team with whom he had first toured in 1985. If McDermott had stayed fit, he could have become the first man to get to 500 Test wickets instead of settling for a mere (mere!) 291.

Yet, miracle of miracles, he completed a full series and yet again was the key man in the Australia attack. Thirty-two wickets came in the five Tests at an average of 21, outshining even Shane Warne, and his average might have dipped below 20 if it wasn't for an inability to keep his front foot behind the line - such was his hunger to attack the English he sent down 37 no-balls in total.

It was his swansong and took him to 84 wickets in 17 Ashes Tests. His Ashes strike-rate of a wicket every 48 balls is bettered by only three men, including Glenn McGrath, who made his Ashes debut in McDermott's last series. And so the wheel turns...

Hard to believe that McDermott is still only 43. He made the newspapers a couple of years ago for being the victim of a blackmailer who was threatening to make public videos of McDermott having sex with his third wife. Soon after, he was reportedly several million dollars in debt after a failed property project. But perhaps some good news is round the corner for the McDermott family: his son Alistair has signed terms with Queensland while still at school and another teenaged destroyer of England batsmen may be on his way.

Comments

[SouthernWaratah]

His Son Alistair could be a step closer with an invitation to the Cricket Austalia Centre of Excellence where talanted teenagers come to home their skills, Oh! Add the Son of Boon and March to that.... sounds like old times!

http://cricket.com.au/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=41837

[Desmond]

I remember him as being very agressive - acceptable with ball in hand, but excessive without. Very good bowler when fit and I hope his reported business failings are well behind him. When I see Pollock bowl I am often reminded of MD.

[Brian Carpenter]

A welcome inclusion, Patrick. I get the impression that McDermott's largely been forgotten - overshadowed by Lillee and Thomson before and McGrath afterwards - but he was a very good bowler when fully fit. I remember him from '85 and saw him in Australia in 94-5, when I think he was at his best, especially on the first morning in Sydney.