Dennis Lillee to me, yesterday, over the blower, as I sat in the carpark:
“Is that you, Fitzy?”
(Fitzy? FITZY?)
Yes, Mr Lillee, it is me, all these years on. Now 63 but, talking to you, still that 10-year-old boy inside!
DK Lillee, The GREAT MAN!
The guts of it is that Australia’s most revered fast bowler of all time is coming back to Sydney and the SCG for his first public appearance in nigh on a decade, speaking at a dinner for The Chappell Foundation on the evening of Wednesday 30 April.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” he starts, “speaking at such a worthy cause …”
Dennis Lillee in full flight.Credit: Fairfax Archive
Yes, yes, yes, Mr Lillee. But can we bring it back to me, for a moment, please?
I mean, do you, or do you not, happen to remember looking out to your adoring fans on the SCG hill, over 50 years ago, and seeing a shy 10-year-old in a white, terry-towelling hat standing on his Mum and Dad’s wicker picnic basket to be the same height as my three brothers, shyly joining in the chant, “Lillleee! Lilleee! Lilleee!” as you walked back to your mark?
“That was you? Yes, I do remember you! I knew it the moment I met you.”
I knew it!
(I MC-ed for him at some lunches and dinners a couple of decades ago, through Brissie, Sydney and Melbourne, and am embarrassingly touched that he remembers. “Fitzy”. He called me “Fitzy”. But I digress …)
And while the kid in the terry-towelling hat is no doubt one of your greatest memories of the SCG, I suppose you must have some other great memories of our grand old lady?
“Yes,” he says, “it is the Aussie Lord’s. It is a special place, and I absolutely loved playing there. The thing about it is just that wonderful history. When I was playing there, I would be thinking that I was in the same place as where Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller, Richie Benaud, Bradman all made their names – all of them heroes of mine. It just always had this amazing atmosphere, with great crowds.”
What about specific matches?
“I sometimes think the best I ever bowled was at the SCG in a day-night match of World Series Cricket. That won’t thrill the purists, but they can thank God there was World Series Cricket, because it gave cricket the standing it deserves. So this match was against the Windies, and everything just seemed to be so easy, and worked so beautifully. I got seven-fer.”
‘World Series Cricket gave cricket the standing it deserved.’Credit: Getty
What of the other famous story of you at the SCG: the first World Series Cricket match played there, when Kerry Packer called for you to come up before the match? Is that true?
“Absolutely. He sent John Cornell down to get me, and I climbed up into one of those grand rooms up high to which I’d never been bloody invited. Kerry was standing in front of the open window, and beckoned me over. I looked out, and couldn’t believe my eyes. There were lines at least 500 metres long, and there must have been 30,000 people lining up to get in.”
And what did Packer say to you?
“He just said, ‘We’ve made it, son’. It was the moment when he, and we, knew that World Series Cricket was going to work. Our crowds had been small to that point, but that first World Series match in Sydney was the turning point. The Sydney crowd decided they liked our cricket better than the stuff that we’d left behind, and our crowds were just massive from then on.”
You were, seriously, Australia’s hero. What was it actually like, to be hearing the chant “Lilleeee! Lillleeee! Lilleeee!” Did you take pause to consider, this is amazing. I’m in Sydney, and they’re on their feet at the Hill, chanting my name?
“Look, you don’t think much of it about at the time you’re running in. There’s no sound. Your concentration takes over most of the time, you know?” (I know. Happened to me all the time.) “But as you’re walking back to your mark, you can hear it and it’s just amazing. Lifts you up.”
Your blokes invented sledging, but did anyone ever dare sledge you at the SCG?
“I can’t really remember, but I know I would. There was this bloke, Keith Fletcher was his name, a little gnome-like sort of being. I bowled him this ball which must have struck him on the fingers or elbow or something like that. And I follow through near him with a bit of a smirk, and he gives me the two fingers. And I said, ‘What’s that, Keith, your batting average for the series or your IQ?’”
Got him, yes! Middle stump!
You were my hero. Who was yours?
“Muhammad Ali, Wesley Hall, Ray Lindwall, Freddie Trueman.”
In sum, have I got this right, Dennis? You’ve taken 355 Test wickets PLUS 79 in the Super Tests. You’ve married a fine woman, to live happily ever after, and raised fine kids. You were the hero of Australia for decades, and still are for many of my generation. Do you ever think you’re the most blessed bastard that ever lived?
‘Special bond’: Lillee (right) with Greg Chappell (centre) and Rod Marsh after their last Test for Australia, against Pakistan at the SCG in 1984.Credit: Paul Mathews
“Absolutely, every day. I kick myself every day.”
Someone referred to you the other day as the “Greta Garbo of cricket”, as you make so few appearances these days. So what is the bond between you guys that makes someone like you fly the breadth of the continent to help out Greg Chappell, no questions asked?
“We have that bond. And Greg was such an integral part of the team – great captain, great player, very elegant batsman – and of course he’s doing something for homeless people in Australia, which is a terrible plague. So I’m very happy to help.”
Can’t wait to see you, Mr Lillee. I’ll be the one in the terry-towelling hat, standing on the wicker basket. See you on the evening of 30 April, at the grand old lady, the Aussie Lord’s.
