Book Extract – Tested: Big Decisions. Small Decisions. The remarkable power of resolve

Dennis Lillee was an integral part of the Australian cricket teams. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year and part of Australia’s Test Team of the Century; he is a Member of the Order of the British Empire, a Member of the Order of Australia and one of the ten inaugural inductees to the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame. When he joined the Australian test side in 1971, he was working as a bank teller at the Commonwealth Bank in Perth. It was his grandfather who rang him at the accountants’ desk to tell him that he had been selected. Lillee established his reputation from the very beginning but also given the speed of his bowling, he also developed injuries. Eventually he was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his back. This was the first such fracture diagnosed in cricket. At the time, it was predicted that this was the death knell for the twenty-four-year-old cricketer with a promising career. But Lillee professionalised his rehabilitation as he did everything else. He paid for his own treatment and returned for the 1974/75 Ashes tour. Alongside Jeff Thomson, Dennis spearheaded the attack in a series that Australia won 4-1.

Pat Cummins concludes in this chapter by saying that “My key takeaway from talking with Dennis was how he took control of his career, and left no stone unturned in his quest for greatness. Dennis really was a trail-blazer in how a fast bowled needs to train and condition their body to get the best out of themselves. He wouldn’t settle for how things were already done and do the ordinary. He was happy to go about it in his own way to set himself up to be extraordinary. He had a healthy balance of respect for the experts and coaches in the corner, but enough confidence in his own judgement to filter through that advice and make use of that which suited him.

Another takeaway for me was how Dennis and the other World Series players professionalised the sport. Part of it being a professional is being paid equitably, but another part if to be a custodian for future generations, and to ensure that we leave the game in a better place when we end our careers.

Dennis saw that system was inequitable, and he fought for what he believed was fair — not just for himself but for those who would come after him.”

Excerpted with permission from Tested: Big Decisions. Small Decisions. The remarkable power of resolve, Pat Cummins, HarperCollins Publishers India.

- Jaya Bhattacharji Rose

***

In 1974, Dennis was – like every other player in the team – getting $200 a Test match as payment (equivalent to about $2200 now), without a contract, and the money only got paid if they played. These match fees were the only compensation paid to players in the national side.

In that Ashes series the players had watched the grounds fill with record crowds: ninety thousand spectators in Melbourne and fifty thousand in Sydney on multiple days. They knew the cash being generated by the games was significant. Yet the players were seeing almost none of it. Even if a player was picked for every Test, he would be earning less than the minimum wage from cricket.

The international players were also upset about how their cricket schedules were getting busier. Previously the Australian team had really only played England, with tours of places like the West Indies or India happening perhaps once or twice in a player’s career. Now, with the advent of passenger jets, international tours were becoming more common. Every player wanted to represent Australia as often as they could, but they were finding it extremely hard to balance their professional, personal and cricketing lives.

There was an impasse and a fracture. The then Test captain, Ian Chappell, had been agitating on behalf of the players, trying to come to an agreement with the newly renamed Australian Cricket Board (now Cricket Australia) that would see the players have some say in the international schedule and some kind of remuneration review, but he was being fobbed off.

A lot of players believed the situation was untenable, but any gripes were only aired within team circles. Players rarely spoke to anyone about money and issues with the board, but Dennis did just that in the Sydney Cricket Ground rooms after winning the Ashes.

‘Do you think you’re underpaid?’ the man asked. Dennis replied that he thought he was.

‘How much do you think you should be paid?’ the man asked.

Dennis considered his investment in the game and the revenue he and the other high-profile players were bringing in, and then answered, ‘$30,000 a year.’ (That’s about $330,000 a year now.)

Unbeknown to Dennis, the man was a journalist.

Dennis had no idea he’d contributed to a story until two days later, when he was in Perth playing grade cricket. He saw a man in a suit watching on – which, Dennis told me, was an unusual occurrence. After taking a better look, Dennis said he faintly recognised the man: an Australian Cricket Board member who had recently toured with the Test team. Dennis knew that he lived in Melbourne. ‘He sort of waved, and I waved back. I walked over and asked, “What are you doing?” He said, “I want to have a chat to you afterwards,” and I said, “Okay. See you in the bar afterwards.”’

This is how Dennis remembers the conversation at the bar:

‘You’re a long way from home,’ he said to the board member. ‘Dennis, I’m here as a friend.’ 

‘That’s nice. You here on holiday?’

‘No … Dennis, you have to be careful about things like what you’ve said in the paper. You know things like that can end badly.’

Dennis told me that he should have asked whether he was being threatened, but he just said, ‘I’ll say what I like.’

‘As a friend, I thought I’d warn you,’ the man replied.

And that was it. The conversation was over. The issue was far from resolved, however.

*

The Australian players were not going to continue as they had before. Dennis said each player had his own issue, but for him a major grievance was that he wasn’t being treated like the professional he was. He said the board considered the players to be interchangeable, not recognising just how hard cricketers like him had worked to be successful and, in turn, marketable. ‘The fans came to see us play,’ Dennis said. ‘Not the board or the CEO or anything. That should mean something.’

Dennis discussed the issue with his manager, John Cornell, who also managed Paul Hogan and appeared on screen as Hogan’s offsider ‘Strop’ in The Paul Hogan Show. The pair came up with what they saw as a modest proposal: they might play a one-off one-day match against the rest of the world, with the gate and TV revenue going to the players of both teams. The other Australian players were interested.

But before taking it to the Australian Cricket Board, Cornell, with his business partner Austin Robertson, took the idea to Kerry Packer, the formidable owner of Channel Nine, which aired The Paul Hogan Show.

If you don’t know of Kerry Packer, there’s no brief way to introduce him. He was an Australian business and media titan, as powerful as any person in the country and with a personality of hammered steel. He never suffered fools lightly, never left a dollar on the table and never rented things he thought he could own.

Packer had been watching cricket’s television ratings go up and up, and he badly wanted the rights for Nine. He had previously approached the Australian Cricket Board with a $2.5 million offer but been told they had already promised rights to the ABC for three years for $207,000. When Cornell, Robertson and Dennis approached Packer, the mogul saw an opportunity.

Starting with Dennis, Packer started secretly signing cricketers for a breakaway competition set to begin in 1977. Nearly every high-profile player in the Australian Test side, as well as the biggest names from overseas (the English, West Indian and subcontinental players earned no more than their Australian counterparts), signed up; Dennis told me that he doesn’t know of any player who refused. ‘I couldn’t hold down a full-time job and play cricket, so for me it was [about] security. I had only a few more years, and we needed some sort of security. I didn’t have a job. I had to start my own businesses, and I wanted some security in my life.’

All up, fifty players were signed to what was to be called ‘World Series Cricket’. Planning began for six Tests and six one-day matches between Australia and the Rest of the World, with all of them to be broadcast on Nine.

Then, in May 1977, as the Australian team prepared in England for the first Ashes Test, the story broke. The players who had signed a contract with Packer were nearly immediately banned from any cricket venues associated with the Australian Cricket Board or the International Cricket Conference (the international body governing the game, now called the International Cricket Council). For players like Dennis, there was a real prospect that the breakaway competition might die on the vine and preclude them from ever playing first-class cricket again.

Across the world, the media screamed about the cricket ‘circus’ decrying the ‘Test pirates’. With establishment figures and Packer’s media enemies steadfastly, loudly and ideologically against the idea of World Series Cricket, initially there wasn’t a lot of public support for the players. ‘They thought we were being selfish and chasing a dollar,’ said Dennis. ‘That was how people saw it.’ He explained that this perception spread to players who were outside Packer’s largesse, describing a moment after the story had broken when he bumped into the wicketkeeper of his club side in the supermarket; the man wouldn’t even meet Dennis’s eyes when the player approached him. ‘That’s how raw it got,’ Dennis told me. ‘It wasn’t a good time, but we believed in what we were doing.’

As Dennis told me his story, I couldn’t help but think how isolating this must have been for him. Dennis was used to being loved by the public, playing in front of big crowds and spending his time in teams. But the true price of playing for Australia hadn’t been seen by the public. As the crowds, ticket sales and workload grew, so too did the trade-offs for the players, until it became unsustainable.

Dennis and many of the World Series players wanted to change their own circumstances, but they also wanted to protect the future of the sport. Cricket was becoming increasingly popular, competitive and lucrative. The cricket boards wanted players who were professional and hardworking, but also endlessly available, with no concern for what that might mean to the men. Dennis was worried that some of the best players might simply leave the game. ‘We thought of the game and also players in the future, because it was going to benefit players like yourself in the future,’ Dennis told me. ‘It was going to be tough, but we knew we had to do it.’ He also told me how he felt he had nothing to lose in going for it. He’d already lost his bank-teller job, income and security because of the time he’d devoted to cricket.

Packer recognised the importance of consulting with the players in a way Dennis said the Australian Cricket Board never did. The media titan would call him regularly about competition formats, rule changes and potential signings. Once, Dennis and Chappell said they thought Ashley Mallett should get a World Series contract, but Packer told the pair Mallett simply couldn’t bowl. When the men couldn’t agree, Packer decided to put the pads on and let Mallett bowl at him. After the player took Packer’s wicket, he was offered a contract. Packer was hands-on in every aspect of the competition because he, like Dennis, was a professional. No stone was left unturned in launching World Series Cricket, no question unanswered, no dollar spared but no cent wasted either. Dennis told me about a time when a game was abandoned during a rain shower, and Packer personally berated the umpires because the match ball was left to be waterlogged. ‘He was a hard man but a good man,’ Dennis said. ‘He was good to me, anyway, and good for cricket.’

In the lead-up to the first World Series games, none of the players contracted to Packer could use any official cricket ground. For Dennis that meant not only were the WACA and grade cricket grounds off limits, but schools and local ovals also. Dennis told me, ‘We had to use bloody playgrounds and parks to practise.’

The first season of World Series Cricket was a flop. There were ‘Supertests’ involving a full-strength West Indian team and one-day matches in the ‘International Cup’, but all were played primarily on grounds designed for Australian Rules football or on temporary drop-in pitches. Sometimes the contests seemed ad hoc and the crowds were meagre.

After a ruling in the British High Court, the players from the breakaway group were allowed back into their first-class sides – but few returned, as their welcome was far from certain and some cricket associations were still steadfastly against the players Packer had signed. ‘We were unwavering, though,’ said Dennis. More importantly, Packer was unwavering also. ‘He was the only bloke that could have made it work because he was so strong and wouldn’t wilt under pressure, and he got some pressure. He had a strong bunch of guys with him that were never going to wilt. A lot of people owe Kerry Packer a debt. He was a great man.’

Pat Cummins Tested: Big Decisions. Small Decisions. The remarkable power of resolve First published on Gadigal country in Australia 2024 by HarperCollins Publishers Australia and in India by HarperCollins Publishers 2025. Pb. Pp. 288. Rs. 499.