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Our top five picks from this new book detailing the madcap pursuits, comic foolishness, and sheer audacity and skill from Australia’s cricket teams DENNIS LILLEE’S REQUEST FOR THE QUEEN’S AUTOGRAPH Most of the time you don’t think of Dennis Lillee as funny. I mean, sure, to modern eyes, there’s something vaguely preposterous about many of the cricketers of the 1970s. Their machismo, heavy drinking and general roughness make them seem like stereotypical Australians, characters straight from Monty Python’s Bruces sketch, except less nuanced.
Dennis Lillee came up with a lot of comical foolishness above and beyond the general baseline of 1970s macho nonsense, standing out as a man capable of ridiculousness even among his ridiculous peers.
Probably the best example of Lillee’s weirdness was the time he asked Queen Elizabeth II for her autograph. Does one ask royalty for autographs? No.
The incident occurred during the Centenary Test, a one-off match between Australia and England held in 1977 at the MCG to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the very first Test. On the final day of the Test, the contest was approaching a thrilling climax. (Thrilling, but also repetitive, as the game would finish with the same result as that original Test, an Australia win by 45 runs.) With just one session remaining, Queen Elizabeth II popped by to meet the players. Australian captain Ian Chappell introduced her to his team, eventually reaching Lillee, who, seizing the moment, requested an autograph.
Why not? Maybe she’d sign his bat or something.
Alas, no. The Queen turned him down. Worth a shot, though. Let’s hope Cameron Green has better luck with King Charles in the 2027 Sesquicentenary Test.
SHANE WARNE’S LAST-BALL MIND GAMES CHAT There were many extraordinary facets to Shane Warne’s bowling. One of the greatest aspects of Warne’s bowling, however, had nothing to do with his capacity to roll his arm over and hurl a spinning cricket ball down the pitch.
I refer, of course, to Warne’s mind games. His ability to get inside the head of a batter. Or an umpire. Or his teammates. Or the crowd. Or any combination of those.
Warne could, by sheer force of personality and reputation, make people believe in the existence of the most non-existent things. And...