Graeme Wood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Graeme Wood

Australia
Personal information
Batting style Left-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm medium
Career statistics
Tests ODIs
Matches 59 83
Runs scored 3374 2219
Batting average 31.83 33.62
100s/50s 9/13 3/11
Top score 172 114*
Balls bowled - -
Wickets - -
Bowling average - -
5 wickets in innings - -
10 wickets in match - n/a
Best bowling - -
Catches/stumpings 41/- 17/-

As of 12 December 2005
Source: Cricinfo

Graeme Malcolm Wood (born November 6, 1956, East Fremantle, Western Australia) is a former Australian cricketer who played in 59 Tests and 83 ODIs from 1978 to 1989. He scored nine Test centuries in his career and it was a West Australian record until 2001-02 when it was passed by Justin Langer.

His Test debut came against India as a 21-year-old in 1978. He got his place in the side due to several of Australia's best players defecting to World Series Cricket. Later in the year he toured the West Indies and scored a century in the 1st Test as well as four half-centuries as he finished the Test series with the best run aggregate of 474 runs at 47.40.

He maintained his place in the Australian cricket team for the majority of the early to mid 1980s. He was dropped after the disastrous tour of England in 1985, but excellent domestic form saw him recalled in 1988/89 for the test series against the West Indies, he scored 111 and 42 in the second test and was dropped for some unknown reason after the third test. Overall his best innings seemed to be against the West Indies, and the Australian selectors always seemed to recall him when a series against them was close. But after 1988 he never appeared in the test side again.

Graeme Wood's Test career batting performance.
Graeme Wood's Test career batting performance.

In first class his record was very good, he scored 13352 runs, making 35 centuries and 61 half centuries. As the captain of Western Australia he lead the team to victory in three Sheffield Shield finals and another in the limited overs competition. Moves to have him outed as the Western Australian captain surfaced in 1991. Believed to be lead by then vice captain Geoff Marsh, Daryl Foster and David Smith, they managed to make a mockery of the situation by influencing the other team members to vote him out as captain, shortly after that a similar vote saw him outed from the team. At the time his batting average was an outstanding 46.33 in the Sheffield Shield competition.He retired shortly after.

Wood's ability influenced a number of other cricketers during his time, Justin Langer, Tim Zoehrer, Damien Martyn and Chris Matthews have all mentioned his influence upon their personal game.

Prior to making his Test debut in 1978, Wood played Australian rules football for the East Fremantle Football Club in the West Australian Football League, playing 14 games between 1975 and 1977.[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Every East Fremantle Player, iprimus.com, Retrieved 12 October 2007

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Wood, Graeme Malcolm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Cricketer
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH East Fremantle, Western Australia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages