‘I’ll get on the ship’: How Davo – 90 not out – did his pop proud

If Don Bradman’s march towards becoming cricket’s greatest batsman started the first time he hit a golf ball against a corrugated-iron water tank, Alan Davidson’s odyssey to become one of the sport’s greatest all-rounders commenced the day he carved a pitch into the side of a small hill with a
mattock.

World War II was raging as Davidson, whose humble goal was to one day represent Combined Country, used his father’s mattock and spade to construct his crude pitch. It was tough work, and it could have appeared to an observer that the tiny boy was trying to move a mountain.

Ninety not out: Australian cricket great Alan Davidson in his Sydney home.Credit:Janie Barrett

However, for a lad who’d chopped wood from the age of five, and who, at 14, would carry sacks of wheat heavy enough to strain a front-rower’s back, it was nothing.

“I levelled the hill off,” recalled Davidson, who turned 90 on Friday. “Then I’d smash down on the dirt with the spade to harden it up.

Accuracy was so important, because if I missed those sticks the ball rolled into the gully.

“Three sticks from a gum tree were my stumps, and I peeled the leather off a six-stitcher to use the innards of it to practice my left-arm spin. I did that because the twining and cork fitted more easily into my small hand.

“Accuracy was so important, because if I missed those sticks the ball rolled into the gully. That was no good because apart from the long chase, I’d have to also search for it in the scrub.”

As he approached his milestone, Davidson recalled the giants who influenced his career – Harvey, Bradman, Benaud, Miller, Lindwall and co – but on this day he emphasised the impact of his grandfather, Arthur "Paddy" Clifton.

A pioneering timber-cutter, Clifton was also a prolific bush batsman with a highest score of 214, unconquered. Born in 1878, played against the likes of the 1902-05 Test batsman, Reg Duff.

Fetch that: Alan Davidson unleashes a cover drive.Credit:Fairfax Media

While Davidson learnt to crack a whip by watching his grandfather whenever his bullock train, exhausted from hauling freshly hewn trunks of white mahogany and spotted gum, refused to budge along the bush track. However, the lessons he taught the boy about cricket were of even greater value.

“When I was eight, my grandfather showed me the photograph of the ship that took the 1938 Ashes team to England,” said Davidson of the patriarch the cricket ground at Narara is named after.

“I remember saying, ‘I’ll do that one day, granddad; I’ll get on the ship’. And I did – three times! But, when I batted he’d growl: ‘You’ll never be any good until you play a straight bat.”

Davidson’s first match – against men – was played 80 years ago. He was 10 when called upon to field because a Lisarow player failed to show up for the second-grade final against Narara.

With one wicket remaining and Narara five runs away from victory, Davidson took a high catch that sealed the title: “Men ran from everywhere to get it,” he laughed. “But I heard my father yell above the noise ‘leave him – he’ll catch it!’”

Davidson’s was a Spartan upbringing. While raised on the fresh produce that grew on his family’s property – and his mother cooked the rabbits he caught “10 different ways” – he remembers homes that were illuminated by kerosene lamps. Further proof no-one had money was that very few of the 40 kids he attended school with owned shoes.

Spoils of victory: Alan Davidson presents Steve Smith with the Frank Worrell Trophy after winning the series against the West Indies in 2016.Credit:AP

His footwear came via an uncle who gifted him a pair of army boots he brought back from fighting the Japanese in Papua New Guinea. Davidson ran for miles along goat tracks in the hobnailed clodhoppers and credits them for developing the power that was needed to propel his legs on soul-destroying pitches across the globe.

“They weighed a tonne,” he grimaced. “But, when you think about it [Emil] Zatopek, who won three gold medals for [long distance] running at the [1952 Helsinki] Olympics, trained in similar boots and wore running shoes when he competed.

“I don’t doubt that’s why my leg strength was enormous and why I also developed size. I was only a tiny kid. I have a photo of me at high school and while I’m standing I’m only as tall as the blokes

sitting on the chairs.

“In the 12 months after I turned 16-and-a-half, I shot up from five feet five to a shade under six feet – that changed things for me. I stopped bowling spin the day my uncle Vern asked me to bowl a few quick ones at him in the nets.

“He’d played grade cricket in Sydney and I bowled three balls at him and got him out twice. In our next match, Vern handed me the new ball and I took four wickets. I was a fast bowler from that day on."

His grandfather, however, had one final lesson to teach Davidson the very first time they ever crossed paths during the summer of 1946-47, when the strapping 18-year-old took 100 wickets at an average of six.

Full stretch: Alan Davidson sends one down.Credit:Fairfax Media

“He was a better cricketer than me,” Davidson said while remembering the contest.
“I was 18; my grandfather was 67. He had a stiff elbow because of an accident as a younger man, but it didn’t stop him. Despite all of the wickets I’d taken before that match, I just couldn’t bowl him out. He finished on 80 not out.”

Davidson would, however, do Paddy proud. His legend still resonates 56 years after dismissing England’s Alan Smith with the final delivery of his 44-Test career, because he’s remembered for:

 Starring in the historic 1960 Tied Test against the West Indies. Davidson became the first player to complete the "double" – 10 wickets and 100 runs in a Test – when he took 11 wickets and belted 124 runs at the Gabba.

 Bowling Australia to victory on a batsman friendly SCG pitch in the third Test of the 1962-63 Ashes series with 4-54 and 5-25.

 Losing 11 kilos in sweltering heat during the second Test against India in 1959-60 against India. He took 5-31, scored 41 before bowling unchanged on a clay pitch to seize a career-best 7-93 from 57.3 (eight ball) overs.

 Securing the Ashes in 1961, when, after he and Graham McKenzie put on a 98-run last wicket partnership, Davidson dismissed Brian Statham with England 20 minutes away from victory.

 Being one of a select few Test bowlers with an average under 21

 Boasting the lowest economy rate for any Test fast bowler with 180-plus wickets (1.97 per over)

Fond farewell: Alan Davidson and Neil Harvey, playing in their final Tests, lead Australia onto the SCG during the 1962-63 Ashes.Credit:Age archive

 Being dubbed "The Claw" for his ability to take seemingly impossible catches

 Thumping the ball so hard for Western Suburbs that the lawn bowlers next to Ashfield’s Pratten Park sheltered in the bar whenever "Davo" batted.

 Serving as president for Cricket NSW for 33 years (1970-2003) before becoming the organisation’s joint patron with former prime minister, John Howard.

 Bowling a maiden over in 2014 to former Test player Gavin Robertson – who Davidson warmly describes as a "fine man who played cricket in the right spirit" – at 84 years of age. Paddy Clifton did something similar at the same age in 1962 when he bowled for the Clifton XI that defeated
Gosford’s representative team. Incredibly, Davidson never fulfilled his goal of representing Combined Country.

However, at 90, and still deeply in love with his wife Betty, he ought to be remembered in folklore as the little boy who moved a mountain to achieve greatness.

Team man: Alan Davidson, right, share a laugh with keeper Wally Grout in the SCG change rooms in 1961.Credit:Fairfax Media

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