Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: At what age did William Morris "Bill" Lawry start playing cricket?
Lawry was born in the Melbourne suburb of Thornbury. He was given the names William Morris after the early Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes. His father Alfred played amateur cricket until the age of 51. Bill never saw his father play, who was aged 47 when Bill was born.[3] Aged nine, he played competitive cricket for the first time with the Thornbury Presbyterian Church team.[1] He spent three years there, as well as playing for Preston Technical School. When he was twelve, he entered Melbourne's district competition playing for Northcote's fourth team, working his way up to the First XI by the age of sixteen.[4] At the time, he was apprenticed as a plumber and attending Preston Technical College. Lawry was selected for Victoria's Second XI at the age of seventeen.[5] He made a duck against the South Australians and did not see any further action for the Seconds for the rest of the summer of 1954–55.[6] The following season, Lawry was recalled to the Seconds and scored 183 against South Australia.[6]
Cosier played club cricket for Northcote where his captain was Bill Lawry. He made his first-class debut aged 18 for Victoria during the summer of 1971–72, opening with Lawry. Early sports writers sometimes compared him to Lawry. Cosier was a different style of batsman but later said "Bill's influence on me was in the way he could fight out of a situation. He was incredible the way he would bat with pain and with everything running against him."
The 1970s saw players and administrators once again come into conflict. Poor scheduling saw Australia visit South Africa immediately after a tour to India in 1969–70. This would be the last tour to South Africa prior to the application of international sporting sanctions designed to oppose the policy of apartheid. The tired Australians came across a very strong South African team in conditions vastly different from the subcontinent, and were subsequently beaten 4–0. A request by the Australian Cricket Board for the players to play a further match in South Africa was met with resistance by the players, led by the captain, Bill Lawry.[19] During the following home series against England, Lawry was sacked as captain and replaced by the South Australian batsman, Ian Chappell. Lawry remains the only Australian captain to be sacked in the middle of a Test series.[19] Chappell, part of a younger and more assertive generation, saw the board's treatment of Lawry as disgraceful and made a pledge to never allow himself to be placed in the same situation.
South Africa's last Test series before their expulsion from international cricket was against Bill Lawry's Australians. The Australians had just completed a gruelling tour of India in vastly different playing conditions before coming to South Africa. Pollock's form continued into the series and he averaged 73.85. Pollock managed to break Jackie McGlew's South African Test record of 255 when he scored 274 in the 2nd Test in Durban. When Pollock was batting in this innings with Barry Richards, the opposing captain, Bill Lawry, said about this innings: "Never have I seen the ball hit with such power by two players at the same time." He held this record for nearly thirty years until Daryll Cullinan scored 275 not out against New Zealand in 1999. Pollock was 26 years of age when his Test career was brought to an end.
William Justus Lawry (born 24 April 1940) is a former English cricketer. Lawry was a left-handed batsman who played primarily as a wicketkeeper. He was born at St Just, Cornwall.
After two weeks of preparation, the tour went awry for the Australians.[6] They fell to a 170-run loss in the First Test in Cape Town, with Lawry giving finger gestures to the crowd and continuously arguing with the umpires.[49] The Australian skipper managed only 2 in the first innings as the hosts took a 218-run lead that set up the match.[6] Lawry scored 83 in the second innings, which was to be the highest Australian score for the series, an indication of his team's lack of batting form.[53] At the end of the match, angered by officiating that he considered to be unacceptable, Lawry refused to accept a presentation by the two umpires.[54] The series moved on to Kingsmead at Durban. Host captain Ali Bacher outwitted Lawry by persuading the Australian skipper to toss long before the start of play. Bacher won the toss and decided—against conventional wisdom—to bat first on a green pitch that would normally offer assistance to the bowlers. Immediately after, ground staff ran onto the field and cut off all the grass, making it ideal for batting, thereby giving the South Africans the advantage. Knowing the rules in greater detail, Bacher had tricked Lawry. The laws of cricket allowed for the wicket to be mown up to half an hour before the start of play, so Bacher had talked Lawry in tossing early so that he could change the pitch condition to advantage his team.[55] South Africa amassed 9/622 declared and Australia fell to its first innings defeat in four years, folding for 157 and 336. Lawry could not see off the hosts' opening bowlers, falling for 15 and 14,[6] as South Africa took a 2–0 lead. The last two Tests brought no respite, as South Africa registered two large victories by 307 and 323 runs respectively.[53] Lawry only managed 79 runs in the last two Tests, and passed 20 only once.[6] Bacher's side, which was regarded as one of the finest in Test history, had inflicted what remains the heaviest Test series defeat in Australian cricket history.[49] Lawry's men did not win any of the three matches against provincial sides after the start of the Tests, meaning that they went eight matches without victory.[6]
In 1909, the Brunswick Cricket Club joined the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association and moved to A.G. Gillon Oval shortly after, which remains as the club's home ground today. From the 1940s Brunswick established a reputation as the powerhouse of the competition, remaining undefeated across two seasons in 1928/29 and 1929/30. The club went on to win six premierships in seven seasons from 1939/40 to 1945/46. Over these decades, William J. Dowling (of Dowling Shield Fame) won the first eleven batting award fifteen times and the bowling award once. Bill was captain of the 1928/29 Premiership team, while other notable players during this period included former Australian Test players Bert Ironmonger and Morris Sievers. Ironmonger returned to Brunswick aged 51 and took 62 wickets at 9.53 in 1936/37. During his time as captain, Ironmonger oversaw the development of young wicketkeeper Bill Jacobs. Bill Jacobs would follow Brunswick players Morris Sievers and Roy Gardiner to the Fitzroy Cricket Club in 1937. Jacobs played 266 consecutive matches for Fitzroy between 1937–38 and 1955–56, before moving into cricket administration. Bill served as a VCA Delegate from 1957-58 to 1968-69, as a State Selector from 1959-60 to 1971-72 (and 1982-83), and as Assistant Secretary of the VCA in 1973-74. Bill managed Australian teams to South Africa (1966–67) and the West Indies (1973), as well as managing the Rest of the World team in Australia (1971–72) at the request of the Australian Cricket Board. He was awarded Cricket Victoria life membership following his retirement as a delegate in 1969.
William Morris (23 November 1873 – 6 May 1945) was an English cricketer who played two matches for Kent County Cricket Club in 1896. Morris was a right-handed batsman. He was born in 1873 at Lee in Blackheath, at that point part of Kent.
William Morris Musson Flintoft (20 March 1889 – 3 May 1951), commonly called Bill Flintoft, was an Australian rules football player with the Melbourne Football Club and the St Kilda Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He played Victorian Premier Cricket for the Melbourne Cricket Club. Flintoft also served in the First Australian Imperial Force in World War I. In later life Flintoft was Mayor of Prahran, on the Committee of the Melbourne Cricket Club, and on the Board of the Melbourne Football Club, serving as president of the latter for three years.
He was also a bowler for the Northcote Cricket Club in district cricket; and, at the age of 17, he played in Northcote's 1st XI premiership winning side in 1965-66, which was captained by Test opener Bill Lawry.
The 1970s saw players and administrators once again come into conflict. Poor scheduling saw Australia visit South Africa immediately after a tour to India in 1969-70. This would be the last tour to South Africa prior to the application of international sporting sanctions designed to oppose the policy of apartheid. The tired Australians came across a very strong South African team in conditions vastly different from the subcontinent, and were subsequently beaten 4-0. A request by the Australian Cricket Board for the players to play a further match in South Africa was met with resistance by the players, led by the captain, Bill Lawry.
During the following home series against England, Lawry was sacked as captain and replaced by the South Australian batsman, Ian Chappell. Lawry remains the only Australian captain to be sacked in the middle of a Test series. Chappell, part of a younger and more assertive generation, saw the board's treatment of Lawry's as disgraceful and made a pledge to never allow himself to be placed in the same situation.
Walter "Bill" Morris Bradley (2 January 1875 – 19 June 1944) was an English amateur cricketer who played in two Test matches in 1899. He played for Kent County Cricket Club between 1895 and 1903.
Lawrie played 94 games for Chicago before leaving the July 21 game against Detroit in the fourth inning, with what was originally described as a tweaked hamstring. He did not play for the team again, as the injury was later said to have also involved his quad, knee, and hip.
Bill Lawrie (25 August 1934 – 24 November 1997) was an Australian racing cyclist. In 1963, he won the Herald Sun Tour. He finished in second place in the Australian National Road Race Championships in 1964.
He rode in the 1967 Tour de France for Team Great Britain and did not start in stage 7. In 1969, he won the British National Road Race Championships.
In 1959–60, the national team were away on an eight-Test tour of the Indian subcontinent, opening up opportunities for players in domestic cricket.[7] Lawry played in all 10 of Victoria's inter-state matches.[6] After starting the season with 70 and 50 not out against Western Australia, Lawry went into form slump and accumulated only 56 runs in his next six innings. He scored 85 and 33 and took his maiden first-class wicket in the next match against South Australia, but his form remained modest until the end of the season. He scored fifties in consecutive matches before registering his maiden first-class century, 127, against Western Australia, before scoring an unbeaten 38 in the second innings to see the Victorians to their target of 46.[6] He ended with 666 runs at 44.40 for the season.[6]
John "Nooky" Swanson was a local Brunswick boy who joined the cricket club at 14 years old in 1955/56. After starting in the fourth XI, John had made his way to the First team by the next season. At 20, John went to the Essendon Cricket Club where he played 123 First XI matches during 11 seasons from 1962/63. One of his five grand finals for Essendon (two of which were successful) was the famous defeat by Northcote when Bill Lawry made an inspired 282 no. John went on to represent Victoria in state cricket on 29 occasions between 1965/66 and 1969/70.
The 1970–71 home series against England was the longest in Test history, with six Tests scheduled and another added when the Third Test was washed out. Lawry was to bow out of international cricket in one of the most acrimonious series in Test history. Lawry had gone through a difficult phase on the previous tour, with only 432 runs at 28.80 in nine Tests on the tour of India and South Africa. With Australia losing, and as a non-smoker and non-drinker, he became more distant from many of his own teammates. Lawry had been under pressure after a highly critical report by team manager Fred Bennett.[61] Australia went to the series with confidence after the tourists were unable to win any of their four opening tour matches.[62] Lawry had success in his preparation, scoring 87 and 58 not out in a ten-wicket win over Western Australia at the start of the season.[6]
Lawry was dropped completely in 1957–58 and did not play a match for his state even though they were depleted with Test representatives overseas in South Africa. The left-hander stayed on the sidelines for the first half of the following season when the Test players returned.[6][7] Recalled for Victoria's match against the touring English cricket team in 1958–59, he scored 24 and 22, failing to seize his opportunity against international opponents. He also bowled at first-class level for the first time, bowling two overs without success.[6] However, he was retained in the team, and scored fifties in four of the remaining five innings of the season and ended with 361 runs at 60.16.[6]
William Morris "Bill" Lawry, AM (born 11 February 1937) is a former cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. He captained Australia in 25 Tests, winning nine, losing eight and drawing eight, and led Australia in the inaugural One Day International match, played in 1971. An opening batsman with a reputation for resolute defence, he had the ability to spend long periods of time at the crease. As his career progressed, he wound back his strokeplay to the point where he was described by an English journalist as "the corpse with pads on". Lawry was unceremoniously dumped as captain and player for the final Test of the 1970–71 Ashes series in Australia. Lawry's sacking is regarded as one of the more distasteful incidents in Australian cricket history—he was not informed personally of the selectors' decision before the decision was first broadcast on radio and he only became aware of his fate when confronted by reporters.[1] Lawry was part of the Nine Network cricket commentary team and until 2018, had been in the role for 45 years.[2]
William James Bunce "Bill" Morris (born 21 May 1940) is a former Welsh Rugby Union player who was born in Bow Street, Cardiganshire, Wales. He is the third player known as Bill Morris to play for Wales.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lawry was the cricket manager of the Victorian Cricket Association, helping to recruit players for the Victorian team.[1]
Bill Morris (28 May 1917 – 2 March 2004) was an English cricketer. He played for Essex between 1946 and 1950 and Cambridgeshire in the Minor Counties Championship between 1951 and 1958.
The Westgarth Street Oval in Northcote was renamed the Bill Lawry Oval. In 2010, Lawry was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame.[79]
Lawry continued his marathon season with a remarkable performance in the final of the Victorian district cricket season, playing for Northcote Cricket Club against the Essendon Cricket Club. In 2000, the Victorian Cricket Association's Umpires Association voted it The District Match of the Century.[21] The Essendon team included Ian Monks (captain), John Grant, Greg Brown, Barry Davis, Daryl Foster, Keith Kirby, and John Swanson; and, apart from Lawry, the team's captain, the Northcote team included Frank Brew, Ian Cowley, and Paul Shanahan.
Morris played no first-class cricket after leaving Cambridge, although he continued to play for Beckenham Cricket Club and Band of Brothers, an amateur side closely associated with Kent. He died at his home in Harrow in 2007 aged 81.