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In the lead up to the 14th and final ashes test to be held at the WACA next month I thought it might be good to remember the stand out performances of these games that started with the very first test match in Perth on the 11th – 16th December 1970.

If you talk about the Gabba being a fortress for Australia, the WACA is a ground of considerable pain for the old enemy. Out of the 13 Ashes tests, Australia have won 9, there have been 3 draws with the lone English victory coming in one of the seasons that World Series Cricket had decimated the Australian team (1978-79).

Even though I was only a young lad back in 1970, I vividly remember the excitement and anticipation leading up to the first test match, the papers were full of it for weeks beforehand. WA were very strong in the Shield at that stage as Tony Lock the cagey ex England International was the captain of the state side, so the warm up game WA v England was fiercely contested.

The WACA got a facelift for the occasion including the construction of the Inverarity Stand. Many ex cricketers including Bradman and others from the famous 1948 invincibles were in Perth for the occasion. There were two West Australians in the 1970 team, Rod Marsh and Graham Mckenzie.

Unfortunately the match didn’t live up to the hype because both captains (Illingworth and Lawry) were very defensive and risk averse, the pitch was a road and the game ended fizzling out to a draw. Geoff Boycott batted for nearly 7 hours over the 2 innings for 120 runs. The highlight was definitely day 3 when Greg Chappell broke out and scored a glorious debut century along with Redpath’s 171 which helped Australia recover from 3 -17 to end up with 440.

As a schoolboy I went along to day 4 with a friend and sat through the whole of Boycott's second innings which believe you me was not very exciting. John Snow was the pick of the bowlers on a batsmen friendly pitch and his efforts in this game were a sign of things to come in the rest of the series. If anyone else remembers this game I would be interested in your observations.

Back in a couple of days to discuss the 1974-75 test which was far more exciting from an Australian point of view!

My earliest memory Mike is the 1982/83 WACA Test where that Pommy skinhead jumped the fence and headed towards WA's own Terry Alderman who was fielding near the boundary and he tried to tackle the Pommy boofhead from entering the field of play any further but unfortunately dislocated his shoulder badly in the process, putting him out of cricket for over 12 months.
If that 1981 Botham series in England hadnt already ignited my hatred towards the Soap Dodgers than that 82/83 WACA incident certainly did!

Remember Rod Hogg getting ten wickets in a WACA Ashes Test during the WSC years. Hogg was the pick of the establishment boys.
Immediately after WSC a series was put together (May not have been an official ashes series) anyway Brealey I think protested Lillees aluminium bat a he threw a bit of a tanty.

Thanks for sharing your WACA memories guys, keep them coming. Tonight I want to talk about the 2nd ever test at the WACA.

The 1974-75 ashes test was the 2nd in a series that was dominated by Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. The Englishmen arrived in Australia with an experienced team and quite confident of victory but by the time they got to Perth the wheels were a bit wobbly due to the fact they were blasted into submission by Thommo in Brisbane for a 160 run loss. Also many of their players were nursing broken fingers and bruises from the Gabba loss, so they were a sore and sorry lot by the time the WACA test came to its inevitable conclusion.

England had so many injuries that they had to call on 40 year old Colin Cowdrey to fly out from UK and he was thrust straight into the team. Legend has it that he tried to say good morning to Thomson when he went out to bat but was told to piss off by the bowler.

Ian Chappell won the toss and not surprisingly put England in to bat. They got to 1-99 with the fast bowlers having little impact but Doug Walters , a handy medium pacer, chimed in with a couple of wickets and England fell away to be bowled out for 208. The beauty of the Australian attack during this summer was that they had very good back up bowlers in Max Walker and Ashley Mallett as well as Walters who kept the pressure on when the speedsters needed a break.

On the 2nd day Australia made steady progress on a good batting pitch until Doug Walters played a wonderful innings scoring a century between tea and stumps. He brought up his century with a 6 off the last ball of the day bowled by Bob Willis. I was listening to the radio commentary and I thought that Norman May was going to have a heart attack, so excited was he getting.

Walters actually fell in the first over the next morning without adding to his score but local boy Ross Edwards carried on to a big century and Australia built a lead of 250+. This presented Thommo and Lillee with the perfect opportunity to attack the English batsmen physically and psychologically and I can attest from sitting on the other side of the fence on a 37 degree day that they were both going at full pace and it was very scary even from where I was sitting.

Poor old David Lloyd got hit flush on the box by Thommo and the box split and some of his “sensitive bits” got caught in the destroyed box. He had to be carted off in agony. The English battled hard but the relentless bowling wore them down in the end and Australia only needed 21 to complete a 4 day victory.

They reckon Dougy got out so quickly that next morning Mikeh because he was still pissed from the previous nights celebrations of his brilliant hundred!

I was sitting at mid wicket on the Perth side in the 74 test and recon Max Walker was as fast as Lillie on that pitch.

Saw Cowdrey bat and he was all seven and nines on the crease against the bowlers but the crowd gave him grudging respect when you could see he was having a go even after getting hit a few times.

Good days. Wooden benches, towelling hats, no histrionics by the fielding team when a wicket fell and batsmen hooking balls outside off stump for 4’s.



The WACA in those days could host two games at the same time that’s why you see numerous pitches running east/west.

Thanks for the video, Devonleigh, I've only had a quick look at it thus far.
I sensed the disgust and disdain in Richie Benaud's voice when he said that both sides had opted not to include a spinner in their XI.
We weren't sitting too far away from each other - I was at deep square-leg on the western side of the ground.
Was there on the Saturday when Dungog Doug scored his century and also recall Ian Redpath hitting Geoff Arnold to deep square for four (almost a six) to win the game on Day 4.
You've brought back great memories of the 1970 Ashes Test, mikeh.
Unfortunately, Bill Lawry and Ray Illingworth were such dour captains that neither was prepared to risk defeat in pursuit of victory.

The amazing thing about Hogg's feat was that it was in a losing side; me thinks that that was the only test match England has won in Perth, a ground where they have achieved little.

Hogg was also involved in the bat incident, when the batsman concerned disregarded the instructions of Australia's captain and tried to use the said bat. In the end the captain had to put things right himself.

Don't forget, KJ made a 99 in an Anglo-Australian test which was not played for the urn. Was this the match where Boycott was 99 not out? There was a similar series which did not have the urn on the line played in England in 1975.

Great footage of the 74 - 75 test Devonleigh, thanks for sharing. As well as seeing all the players it was great to hear the legend George commentating again.

The 1978 test against England was a complete mismatch as was the whole series. The Australian team was a 2nd XI because all the best players were in World Series Cricket whereas the English team was pretty much full strength with only Tony Grieg of their best players in the Packer regime.

England batted first and made 309. They were rescued from a poor start by Boycott who made 77 in 7 and a half hours and an elegant 102 from a young David Gower. Rodney Hogg as he did for the whole series restricted the England score by taking a 5 wicket haul.

The Australian batting line up was very brittle and they were reduced to 7- 100 before an unbeaten 81 from Peter Toohey with support from the tail got the score to a more respectable 190.

England led by 119 and built well on that lead early in the 2nd innings to get to 1- 93. Then Hogg triggered off a middle order collapse and England were bowled out for 208. Hogg with 5 - 57 and 10 wickets in the game won the man of the match award in a losing team.

Australia were never going to get anywhere near the 328 required although Graham Wood showed his potential with a fine 64. Wood was one of three West Australians playing in this game, the others were Kim Hughes and Bruce Yardley.

The English came back to Australia in 1979-80 to play a three test series which was a recognition that peace had been negotiated between World Series Cricket and the Australian Cricket Board and as a result Australia had access to all their best players again. However the ashes were not at stake in this series as England had won them less than 12 months before.

The Perth test which was held just prior to Christmas 1979 was regarded as the 'Aluminium bat' test. On the 2nd morning of the match Dennis Lillee brought out a recently developed aluminium bat which he was trying to market to schools and junior clubs at the time. It soon became apparent that the bat was not up to the rigours of test cricket as Lillee didnt appear to be able to get much timing in his shots and the bat made a strange tinny noise when the ball hit it. Greg Chappell sent out the 12th man with some wooden replacements but Lillee refused to change the bat. England captain Mike Brearley also complained to the umpire and there was a 10 minute stand off when the game came to a halt. The impasse was resolved when Chappell came out of the pavilion with the bats and demanded that Lillee take one of them. Lillee then hurled the aluminium bat towards the boundary in a fit of temper.

A lot of people thought that Chappell used this incident to get Dennis going because Australia had made a poor first innings score (244). Lillee did in fact reduce England to 4 -41 before a partial recovery got them back to 228.
Australia then took control of the game in the second innings with Allan Border starring with 115 despite having to temporarily retire hurt at one stage after having been hit on the head.

Chasing an impossible 354 for victory, England held on well into the last session of the match , mainly due to Geoff Boycott who was left stranded on 99 not out when the last wicket fell, but they were denied by an outstanding performance by Geoff Dymock ( a very underrated bowler) who took 6 -34.

Like the previous year at the WACA, the man of the match came from the losing team.On this occasion it was Ian Botham who took 11 wickets in the match.

The Australians ended up winning the series 3 - 0, but were also playing a parallel series that summer against the West Indies and they were thumped by the calypso champions.