Re: Celebrity Death List MMXXIV/The Death Thread 2024

[WideWally]

Grant Page, aged 85

[skully]

Also RIP Karl Wallinger (Who the hell's he, I hear you ask? Well, he wrote a couple of the very best songs of the 80s: Waterboys' The Whole of the Moon, and the prophetic Ship of Fools by World Party)

2 great songs. RIP

[skully]

Grant Page, aged 85

RIP, Mad Max legend.

[Fred Nerk]

RIP Steve Harley

[WideWally]

RIP Steve

[skully]

Aw RIP. "Come up and see me" was a great memory from my youf.

[lardbucket]

This Rockwiz version is treasured. The pause and nod of appreciation and respect to James Black is telling.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lo4-b4rOsYE

[WideWally]

RIP Robin Hobbs, aged 81

[skully]

RIP

[Fred Nerk]

A handy spin bowler, but most recalled as a batsman (made a ton in about 40 mins re Aussie tourists in 1975) and as a fieldsman, as close as England had to the young Lloyd, Sheahan or Bland.

RIP

[lardbucket]

An Essex legend. It’s a shame JKL isn’t aboard to give his perspectives.

The match you refer to was a Duke of Norfolk or TN Pearce XI affair, IIRC. Not a County v tourists thingy. These games rarely occur nowadays and it’s a shame.

I had the pleasure of watching Aus v Sussex in 2013 at a wonderful ground, Brighton - Hove. The paella, cider, atmosphere, bookstalls and market were all outstanding.

[Fred Nerk]

No it was v Essex, just before the last Test. There were no Pearce or other invitational games on the program, prob due to lack of schedule space. Australia won by 98 runs with Essex batting two men short in the 4th innings including Keith Fletcher.

The main victim of Hobbs' rampage was Ashley Mallett who went for nearly 11 an over. He made exactly 100, in a partnership of 133 for the sixth (and third last) wicket with BR (Brian?) Hardie who opened the innings and carried his bat for 88, if the innings is considered completed with the two missing batsmen.

Oz still hadn't resolved who opened with McCosker in the last Test (Marsh at Headingley having convinced nobody including himself of his ability in the spot) so sent Turner and Laird out to sort it out between themselves, and they put on two 100+ opening stands and scored a ton each. Bruce lost the toss and that was as close as he got to a cap until WSC was finished.

[lardbucket]

Was Brian Hardie.

[lardbucket]

http://cricmash.com/pen-sketches/robin-hobbs-45-minutes-of-mayhem

(nice article)

For some reason I’d thought in recent years that this century had occurred in 1972, in one of those ‘festival’ type games I mentioned. Ah well.

[WideWally]

RIP Saeed Ahmed, aged 86

One of the best Pakistan cricketers in their early days. Played 41 tests between 1958 & 1972 scoring 2991 runs @ 40.31 and picking up 22 wkts @ 36.45 with his offies. His test career ended in Australia in 1972/73. He had a blue with Dennis Lillee during the 2nd test & pulled out of the 3rd test with an alleged back injury.

[WideWally]

RIP Phil Lowe, aged 74

Outstanding rugby league second rower from England who played for Manly-Warringah between 1974 & 1976 scoring their only try in their 1976 Grand Final victory over Parramatta.

[lardbucket]

RIP Saeed Ahmed, aged 86

One of the best Pakistan cricketers in their early days. Played 41 tests between 1958 & 1972 scoring 2991 runs @ 40.31 and picking up 22 wkts @ 36.45 with his offies. His test career ended in Australia in 1972/73. He had a blue with Dennis Lillee during the 2nd test & pulled out of the 3rd test with an alleged back injury.

He and Mohammad Ilyas were banned by the Pakistani authorities after that second Test in 72-73, thereby missing the Watkins-Walker miracle match, and never played for their country again. From memory, Ilyas stayed on in Australia, at least for a while, playing Sydney Grade cricket. Saeed simply disappeared. His brother Younis had a strange career also … debuted in 1969 v NZ but did not play for his country again for a decade or so despite scoring very well for Surrey in English county cricket throughout most of the 70s and enjoying one good season for South Australia in our Shield competition. He was finally thrown the bone of another Test or two at the end of his career. I wonder if he was on the outer throughout the 70s at least in part because Saeed was on the outer. Pakistani cricketing politics, including the revolving door of captaincy (even Saeed had had his turn) was always quite obscure.

RIP Saeed. Australia never saw him at his best.

[skully]

RIP Saeed Ahmed & Phil Lowe.

[Fred Nerk]

Younis took the Peter Sleep trivia question to the next level, playing zero Tests in the middle decade. His first two Tests might have been in Saeed's place.

His stint with SA was quite problematic. Ian Chappell wrote that he felt that Younis had been dumped in his lap, he doubted his ability ('If he's that shit hot why isn't he here with the Pak tourists?'), and a batting line-up of himself, Greg, Ashley Woodcock, evergreen Ken Cunningham, and various Causbys and Curtins didn't really need propping up and he was robbing a young local bat of a spot in the team. (Possibly coincidentally, the most talked-about young batsman in Adelaide at that time shared Ian's last name). Younis came good in the second half of the season, possibly because the country's best bowlers were in the West Indies by then, or equally possibly because Chappell was with them.

Saeed had made runs against all comers throughout his career and his courage was never questioned. I wonder whether he was afraid of Lillee (who everybody knew was operating on half rat power and was no certainty to play at all) or just, at 35 years old suddenly found out he'd grown out of the whole caper. According to the Cricinfo report, he never set foot inside a cricket ground again.

[lardbucket]

He made a good 50 in his last innings, and I don’t think Saeed was worried about Lillee (or others mentioned below) so much as disgruntled with Pakistani team management and selection. I recall him batting well in the first innings though Lillee was annoyed at what he considered streaky off side boundaries. Mind you nearly everyone made runs on that deck, and from memory the match had three team scores well over 400!

Saeed’s last Test was remarkable in that it was also the first for one JR Thomson (0 for plenty and 19*) and Max Walker. Paul Sheahan, the last Australian Test player I can recall exiting the game because of his work, at only 27 or so, made a century in the second innings of this game and then announced his unavailability for the WI tour that followed, because of work; so did Ashley Mallett; they both missed the Third Test as a result and thus gifted John Watkins a debut and Ross Edwards a return to the side - luckily, perhaps, as Roscoe took an unforgettable catch off Sadiq in Pakistan’s second innings in that third test. prefacing Max Walker’s 6-15, in just HIS second Test (he also debuted in Saeed’s last match). John Benaud also made his only Test century in this second Test, Saeed’s final hurrah. So Saeed was present at a time of many changes in Oz cricket.

I watched every ball bowled in this series, glued to the box. Those were the days - even Shield cricket got a guernsey on TV at times.

[lardbucket]

I just noticed that Tom Stafford, ex NASA, from ‘the next nine’ or Group 2, has died.

This leaves Jim Lovell (Apollo 8 and 13) as the last survivor in that group, and he’s 95, a ‘feat’ I’m sure he wasn’t expecting to achieve when Apollo 13’s oxygen supply suddenly depleted in an explosion … Houston, we have a problem’.

Stafford commanded Apollo 10, the last moon ‘scouting’ mission before Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins flew to and actually landed on the moon.

[Fred Nerk]

RIP multiple award winning actor Louis Gossett Jr (Roots, An Officer and a Gentleman), aged 87

[skully]

Aw, RIP.

[Red]

Well known social worker and champion of the marginalised -Les Twentyman has passed away.

[skully]

RIP.

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