Jeff Thomson

Like what has become an Australian ritual, i.e. to anoint every player with a pet name, Jeff Thomson was fondly known as ‘Thommo’. He was distinctly different with his high-arm sling action that allowed him to generate a lot of bounce and pace while his talent with the ball allowed him to move it both ways. Thomson never made the effort to bowl differently – his father bowled with the same action and it was just something that came to him too. The family legacy in this matter has been continued and Thomson's kids too bowl with a similar action.

Widely regarded to have been the fastest bowler of his times, Thomson started playing first-class cricket at the age of 22 for the state of New South Wales and out of the blue, was drafted into the national side with just five first-class games behind him. His Test debut was disappointing, so to say, as he was hampered considerably by an undetected injury to the foot. This led to him missing the rest of the season as well as most of the following season. When he finally reappeared for New South Wales, which wasn't until the final game of the 1973-74 season against Queensland, a very fast spell of accurate bowling prompted the opposition captain Greg Chappell to invite Thomson to play under him in the next season. Thomson took Chappell's advice and the move paid off. By his own admission, the years he spent at Queensland were some of the best of his life, so much so that he still lives there.

If a bad debut looked like a huge jolt to his hopes of further playing for Australia, Thomson easily made up for it when he was recalled to the national team for the 1974-75 Ashes series. Picking up 33 wickets, marginally short of Arthur Mailey's then record of 36 wickets in an Australian season, Thomson's fiery pace bowling took the Aussies to a massive 4-1 series victory. Although he had some genuine unconventional talent, quite a lot of credit must be given to his new-ball partner Dennis Lillee as together, they formed one of the deadliest pace attacks the world has ever seen. Thomson describes his partnership with Lillee as a “butt-kicking” one and fondly describes himself as the quiet assassin, and Lillee as the obvious, aggressive assassin. The duo bowled superbly in tandem and were involved in numerous triumphs, a famous one coming against the then world champions – the West Indies. In the six Tests that were played in the series, Thomson clinched 29 wickets at a marginally high economy rate of 4.14 runs per over. Their partnership was so lethal that playing together for Australia, they only ever lost one Test!

In the following season though, things didn't go so well for him. He was involved in a ghastly collision with Australian opener Alan Turner. Not only did he miss out on the rest of the season, the busted shoulder slowed down his career considerably. Thomson was absolutely on fire with 75-odd wickets from 15 Tests up to that stage; but without the ability to bowl fast as consistently as he could before, the final tally at the end of his career read 200 wickets from 51 Tests.

Thomson had always wanted to play in Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket (WSC) but wasn't allowed to do so in the first year. Consequently, he played in the home series against India, picking up 22 wickets and made handy contributions with the bat too. His role proved to be highly influential as a depleted Australia (because of most of the original team having signed up with WSC) narrowly won the series 3-2. Having got the clearance to play World Series Cricket in the next year, Thomson toured the West Indies in 1979 along with the rest of “Packer's Circus”, as it was famously called. He has claimed that it was the best and toughest cricket that he had ever played in his life.

Although he never got a first-class fifty to his credit, Thomson once hit 49 in a Test match in a winning cause. Not one with any amount of natural talent with the bat, some of his exploits have become legendary. Case in point being the final match of the 1975 Prudential World Cup where together with Lillee, he put on 41 runs for the last wicket, nearly winning the match for Australia before he was run out amidst confusion. Australia was short of 17 runs with 8 balls to spare and West Indies won the first World Cup!

The rest of Thomson's stint with the Australian national squad was rather erratic. He found it difficult to replicate his earlier success and played only two Tests in the 1979-80 season, before being dropped. He was recalled two seasons later in 1981-82 when he played most of the matches but with modest returns of 20 wickets at more than 36 runs apiece. His farewell to Test cricket was a rather unexpected one when he was recalled to the side in 1985 after most fast bowlers left on a rebel tour to South Africa. After picking up dingy figures of 2/174 in the first Test against England, he was left out of the side till the fifth and final Test where he claimed his 200th wicket in Graham Gooch.

After retirement, Thomson took to commentating and is often part of the Ashes commentary team and was even part of the 2007 ICC World Cup broadcaster's mid-innings television show expert panel.