NZ Cricket Rabbit Hole #2
Another All Black on the cricket field, Stead snares seven and Cleaver dreams
I was going to wait a while before I went back in, but it was a slow night at work and so I ventured back down again, into the rabbit hole that is the New Zealand Cricket Archive. Having found it mysteriously, I like to maintain the illusion and so my way of accessing it is by saving links in drafts on my gmail and re-entering through those, navigating by degrees of separation. And within NZ cricket these degrees are far fewer than the well known six degrees of Kevin Bacon. You can move decades in just a few clicks.
So after talking about Jordie Barrett in my last article (An All Black and Ajaz) I want to address another rugby star who sat at the crossroads of fate before choosing to chase an oval ball instead of a small, round red or white one. In this case, however, our rugby player at least dabbled long enough to make the national side, becoming the last of the true double internationals in cricket and rugby for New Zealand. I am, of course, talking about Jeff Wilson, the golden one, born in the south with a cheese roll in his mouth. Well known for his exploits on the rugby field, which included 44 tries from 60 test matches, as well as sparkling performances for Otago and the Highlanders, he rose to prominence as rugby moved into it’s professional era and is more recently known for his rugby punditry on Sky TV. As a schoolboy he’d once scored 66 points in a match for Cargill High School against James Hargest College.
Jeff Wilson 66, James Hargest 6
But before he went all in on the All Blacks he was a tearaway, fast-bowling allrounder. It took the archive to rekindle these memories fully, but Wilson made his ODI debut at Carisbrook against Australia in 1993, where he bowled Damien Martyn late in the innings to finish with 1 for 58 off his 10 overs, and batted at 7 in NZs dismal reply, bowled by future Test umpire Paul Reiffel for nought. He missed the 2nd ODI, but returned for the 3rd as New Zealand fought back into the series after losing the first two. He made 15 with the bat, again at 7, and took 2 for 21 off 5.2 overs, bowling David Boon and doing the same to Shane Warne to wrap up an 88 run win.
A few days later he iced the game at Hamilton too, the 4th ODI, in much more spectacular fashion, this time with the bat. I was at this game as a wide-eyed 11 year old, developing my passion for the sport, and I remember precious little of it but what I do recall is sepia toned and glorious. Wilson was a non-factor with the ball (0-20 off 3) but blew the game, and the series, wide open with a blistering 44 not out off 28 balls as the Young Guns won by 3 wickets, with two balls to spare, levelling the series at 2-2. Australia went on to win in Auckland by 3 runs and claim the series, but the 5th ODI at Eden Park was full of folklore as well. It was THE match where Rod Latham claimed 5 for 32, having both Waugh twins, Boon and Allan Border amongst his scalps in a bowling performance to warm the cockles of every common man who trundles in and rolls his arm over. Wilson was again wicketless but contributed 21 from 28 to the ultimately unsuccessful run chase, in what was his last ODI before bursting on to the international rugby scene with a hat-trick on debut against Scotland at Murrayfield in November of that same year.
Wilson did play international cricket again with two more ODIs against Australia in 2005 as well as a T20I, which didn’t even exist when he first started playing. But by then too much weights, not enough speed work had affected his bowling and he wasn’t the tyro he had been in his youth. He managed one more wicket, picking up Adam Gilchrist at the Basin, and he made 22 off 27 at Christchurch’s Jade Stadium in a fruitless chase of 314, sharing in a 62 run 8th wicket stand with Dan Vettori.
But the kid could play as he showed for Southland, Otago and age group sides in his golden youth. As a 16 year old in 1990 he played Hawke Cup cricket (inexplicably called the U-Bix Cup back then) for Southland alongside his uncle John. At Queens Park in Invercargill, Wilson the younger took 4 for 28 in Marlborough’s second innings, opening the bowling with his uncle, as Southland won by an innings. In another Cup defence a month later, this time against Northland, he took 2-40 and 5-52, including the wickets of future Test opener Bryan Young and a 40 year old Lance Cairns. A match the following season against Taranaki I’ll talk about later, but he also claimed 6-88 against Manawatu and 5-18 against North Otago. He returned to Hawke Cup cricket in November of 2002 with an extraordinary bowling analysis of 14-9-6-2 as Southland beat North Otago in Oamaru, before taking 4-15 and 3-19 in a return fixture later in the summer at Invercargill.
As a fresh-faced youngster he hit centuries for Otago in the Fresh-Up Under-20 Tournaments of 90/91 and 91/92. Against Auckland in December 1990 he hit 109, with 9 fours and 8 sixes, after earlier taking 6-63 in a 3-day match in Wanganui. The following season he scored 102 from number 8, against Wellington in Auckland. In an earlier match against Canterbury in Dunedin he’d taken 5 for 78 in Canterbury’s first innings before being upstaged by a young Gary Stead. Better known for his batting and coaching in later life, Stead took 7 for 39 as Otago were rolled for 132.
Wilson finished his first-class career with a batting average of 21.84 and took 129 wickets from his 39 matches, at an impressive 24.13 a piece. He never hit a top level ton, coming closest when hitting 99 in a Shell Cup match against Central Districts in Dannevirke of all places. Opening the batting with Peter Dobbs, something he did throughout the 92/93 Cup campaign, Wilson’s 99 came off 105 balls and he later added 2-32 off 10 and took two catches as Otago claimed another win on their way to a home final, where they eventually lost to a strong Canterbury side at Carisbrook.
Featuring at the fruit juice sponsored Under-20s tournaments were a host of future Black Caps. Amongst the bowlers were talents like Heath Davis, Roydon Hayes (that’s for you Mush), Robert Kennedy and Geoff Allott, while with the bat there were the likes of Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle, Craig Spearman and the aforementioned Stead, as well as a young man named Dylan Cleaver.
Those not living under a rock lately will be aware of Heath Davis recently coming out publicly as the first gay Black Cap, and Dylan wrote a wonderful piece exploring that story and his own encounters with the fear inducing pace of the young fast bowler. Find it here on Dylan’s excellent Substack magazine The Bounce:
Heath Davis: A hidden treasure
or here on the Spinoffs website:
Growing Up with the Myth of Heath Davis
While you’re at it, check out Madeline Chapman’s amazing article and mini doco, also on the Spinoff website:
Cleaver is a host on one of my regular podcast listens, the BYC podcast, and a former NZ Herald writer and editor. While these days he wields a pen (or more likely a keyboard) as a young man he could certainly wield the willow and hold his own by all accounts. He hit his own century at the 1990/91 Fresh-Up edition, when he spearheaded a tremendous fourth innings chase for CD against Davis’ young Wellingtonian side. Needing 286 for victory, Cleaver hit 102 and shared in a 140 run opening partnership with a GRJ Hart, helping the young Stags to a 7 wicket win.
That match was in December of 1990, but it’s the Hawke (or U-Bix, ugh) Cup clash in March of 1991 that I’d be keen to know more about. In what was, as a lot of these games were, a first innings battle, young Dylan Cleaver opened the batting for the challenging Taranaki as an equally young Jeff Wilson opened the bowling for his Southland side, the Cup holders. The numbers don’t reveal the whole story, but they hint at a tremendous battle as Cleaver made 63 off 228 balls, fourth man out with the score at 182. Wilson bowled 35.1 of the 115.1 overs bowled, taking 6 wickets for 112 runs. The scorecard says Wilson won the battle, as he bowled Cleaver to end his stonewalling stand and Southland ultimately retained the Cup with a first innings win by outscoring Taranaki’s 311 with 314 for 5 from 142.2 overs. The Southerners side included Chris Harris’ brother Ben, Billy Ibadulla’s son Kassem and Otago stalwarts like Michael Lamont, Kevin Burns and Richard Hoskin.
Southland vs Taranaki, 1990/91
Right o, on that note I think I might have found the bottom of this rabbit hole. It might be time to see a shrink, because this kind of stuff fascinates me, seeing the world through the prism of a scorecard!!