Kim Hughes relives finest knock against West Indies’ ‘Four Horsemen’ during 1981 Boxing Day Test

Kim Hughes might have wondered if he’d wandered on to a page of a John le Carré novel. It was Boxing Day 1981 and the future Australian captain grasped a handful of English willow and inhaled a lungful of balmy Melbourne summer air as he faced four “executioners” in creams known as Whispering Death, The Smiling Assassin, Hit Man and Big Bird. It wasn’t much fun facing the West Indies “Four Horsemen” - Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Andy Roberts and Joel Garner – even less so on a wicket that was as dodgy as a catfish curry cooked down a dirty third world side street. Australia was 3-8. The odd ball was keeping subcontinental low, others were spitting off the pitch, shiny red jackjumping weapons of destruction. The West Indies were undefeated in 15 Tests. This was not a place to stretch out the picnic rug for a peaceful mid-morning nap. A mere cricketing mortal would have crawled up in the fetal position or found a way to get out as quickly and painlessly as possible. Not Hughes. He had a plan. He wanted the West Indies to bowl at his body rather than the stumps. He would wear a couple of “trophies” and allow his innate backfoot instincts, crafted on the bouncy WACA clay, to take over. What followed was an imperious counter-attack of backfoot square cuts, hooks and pulls, flicks off the hips, divine drives through cover and straight up the ground. Hughes scored nine tons across 70 Tests, but there were none better than his 100 not out in Australia’s total of 198 on Boxing Day 1981. Cricket bible Wisden rates its ninth in its top 100 Test centuries. Former Australian captain Ian Chappell says it’s one of the bravest innings he’s ever seen. Just two weeks earlier, after Australia had been blown away by Pakistan by an innings and 82 runs at the MCG, captain Greg Chappell expressed genuine fears for his batters as they prepared to face the West Indies on the same centre wicket block. His concerns were justified early on Boxing Day after Australia had won the toss and batted. Openers Bruce Laird and Graeme Wood made 4 and 3, while Chappell was out for a golden duck that marked the early stage of an infamous runs of low scores. As Hughes made his way to the centre he feigned supreme confidence. “You take your guard, you scratch your box about 20 times, you take that regal walk down the pitch,” Hughes recalled. “Your thoughts are just to try and get in there. You need a little bit of luck … I got a couple of inside edges that went for four. “The ball was doing this and that and there was nowhere to hide. “They are just steaming in. But you have to have the balls to make the decision and having made that decision it is incredible how luck goes your way. “I could play well off the back foot because I came from Western Australia. So I thought … I am just going to get after it. If I happen to get knocked over, then at least go down screaming. “I just thought … no matter how well I bat there is going to be a ball that will knock me over. “So I may as well try and get them to bowl at me, to bowl short rather than top of off stump and me nick it. “Fortune favours the brave. “They started bowling a bit shorter, I started coming down the wicket.” Easier said than executed against the fearsome foursome. “Andy Roberts was very much in the ilk of Dennis Lillee. He had a craft. “I remember … he dropped one short and I hooked it and I did that walk down the wicket to pat down a divot. You know the crowd is looking at you and you think ‘You bloody beauty, how good was that?’ “I thought ‘I have got him now’. Next ball I got half way through my stroke and it whistled past my head and and he didn’t say a word, he just looked at me and it was all about ‘Don’t get too clever’. I almost said ‘Sorry, Mr Roberts. “Croft was very different. Whereas Holding was rhythmical, Croft would run in and get out very wide. You think (Jasprit) Bumrah in today’s cricket would get out wide, well Crofty would get out a lot wider.” The wickets continued to fall around Hughes. The great gritty Allan Border was sent back to the dressingroom on 4, Dirk Welham for 17. The Aussies were 5-59. There were mini-partnerships with Rod Marsh and Bruce Yardley, who both made 21, as Australia scrambled to 7-149. Hughes brought up his 50 with an inside edge off Holding for four, with commentator Richie Benaud describing it as a “triumph of good old fashion guts and determination”. “You could say that was a lucky shot but the innings hasn’t been lucky,” Benaud said. Tailenders Dennis Lillee and Geoff Lawson fell cheaply, the Aussies were 9-155. Hughes was on 71 when he was joined by Terry Alderman. “Out comes the ferret,” Hughes recalled. “He wasn’t a rabbit Terry Alderman because a ferret goes in after the rabbits. Terry could not bat to save himself.” In a Melbourne Cricket Club podcast, Alderman recalled his “welcome” from Garner. “I remember Joel Garner bowling a bouncer to me. Well I thought it was a bouncer and I ducked under it and it hit me in the back of the head. And they appealed for LB(W) because the ball just did not get up,” Alderman said. “I said to Kim ‘I don’t reckon I’m going to be around here for much longer, you’d be start playing your big shots’. Well he’d already played a few good ones, but he just unleashed.” Alderman found a way to hang in there long enough for Hughes to raise his bat. “It was incredible. Terry got little inside edges and then it was a bit like a game of footy – you might be five goals behind with five minutes to go before three quarter time and you kick a couple of goals and you think ‘Geez we’ve got a chance’. ‘And you turn 160 into nearly 200,” he said. The tension grew among the 38,755 spectators at the MCG as Hughes worked his way through the 90s unsure if Alderman would hold up his end. He did just that as Hughes brought up his 100 off 196 balls in 258 minutes with a cut shot through point off Garner. “I’ve seen a lot of 100s in Test cricket but you won’t see too many gutsier ones than that,” Benaud said. In a rare moment, fans rushed on to the ground to pat Hughes on the back. “In those days no one ran on to the MCG because that wasn’t done,” Hughes said. “I had to step to the side and move away from the centre wicket because I didn’t want them stepping on to the pitch.” Alderman was out for 10 shortly after and as the Australian pair were walking off the ground, Hughes got a little concerned when Croft made a bee-line for him. “I thought he is not going to hit me now is he? But all he said was ‘Well played man, well played,” Hughes said. Behind the knock was another personal backstory as Hughes had not held a bat in a week, with his father-in-law seriously ill in hospital. He lived long enough to watch the Aussies win and Hughes take the man-of-the-match. But that Boxing Day did not belong only to Hughes. Fellow West Aussie great Dennis Lillee’s end of day spell is celebrated as one of the most lethal ever unleashed, remembered largely for the last ball of the day with the MCG crowd chanting his name in reverence, pleading for a wicket, and he responded by skittling Viv Richards’ stumps. Lillee’s 3-1 from 11 balls left he tourists at 4-10 and the Aussies on top. “Out comes Smokin Joe,” Hughes recalls of Richards’ entrance onto the MCG in fading light. “I remember Western Australia played the West Indies in 1975, just when they were starting their period of world dominance. “Viv got 170 or 180, his skin was just glistening. And he had these white shells around his neck. “I was down at City Beach the next day looking for those bloody shells.” Hughes concedes he did not want to be fielding in slips for this moment in history. “If Greg Chappell wanted someone at third man there would have been seven of us (volunteering),” he said. “You are s…ting yourself. “And in comes Dennis. The last ball of the day. The crowd, it felt like there were 100,000 there, chanting. It does something to you … the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. “The thing with Dennis when he had a ball in his hand, you didn’t have to get him excited. It was on for young and old. There was no one more competitive. “Viv saw it early because he could see it earlier than anyone else, and got an inside edge on to the dollies. “I mean if you’d scripted it … We’ve seen The Three Stooges, we’ve seen Alice in Wonderland but this is a Test match. Things like this don’t happen. “I can still remember Dennis jumping high and Rod Marsh wanting to kiss everyone, which was an ugly look because Bacchus had his big moustache. “Dennis was charging off (the ground) and we were all trying to follow him. They were four down and we had got the great man out. You just wanted to be a part of it.” The next day Lillee set the world record for Test wickets, 309, with career-best figures of 7-83 in the first innings and 10 for the match. But such was the enormity of Hughes’ innings, he pinged Lillee for man-of-the-match honours. “It is great to do well yourself, but what I remember was we won that match and a West Australian by the name of Bruce Yardley got four for (4-38) in the second innings,” Hughes said. “And It was about the only time the West Indies were ever beaten when the wicket suited them.” Listen to the full interview at The West Sport Show. A wagon wheel of the 1981 Boxing Day century can be purchased from Kim Hughes. Interested parties should email glen.quartermain@wanews.com.au