Graham Yallop
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| Graham Yallop | ||||
 Australia |
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| Personal information | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Graham Neil Yallop | |||
| Nickname | Wally | |||
| Born | 7 October 1952 | |||
| Balwyn, Victoria, Australia | ||||
| Height | 1.82 m (5 ft 111⁄2 in) | |||
| Role | Middle-order batsman | |||
| Batting style | Left-hand | |||
| Bowling style | Left-arm medium pace | |||
| Test debut (cap 275) | 3 January 1976: v West Indies | |||
| Last Test | 12 November 1984: v West Indies | |||
| ODI debut | 22 February 1978: v West Indies | |||
| Last ODI | 6 October 1984: v India | |||
| Domestic team information | ||||
| Years | Team | |||
| 1972–1985 | Victoria | |||
| Career statistics | ||||
| Tests | FC | ODI | List A | |
| Matches | 39 | 164 | 30 | 73 |
| Runs scored | 2756 | 11615 | 823 | 1752 |
| Batting average | 41.13 | 45.90 | 39.19 | 30.73 |
| 100s/50s | 8/9 | 30/57 | 0/7 | 0/12 |
| Top score | 268 | 268 | 66* | 91 |
| Balls bowled | 192 | 1514 | 138 | 406 |
| Wickets | 1 | 14 | 3 | 6 |
| Bowling average | 116.00 | 62.57 | 39.66 | 56.33 |
| 5 wickets in innings | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 wickets in match | 0 | 0 | n/a | n/a |
| Best bowling | 1/21 | 4/63 | 2/28 | 2/28 |
| Catches/stumpings | 23/0 | 132/1 | 5 | 9/0 |
Graham Neil Yallop (born 7 October 1952) is a former cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. He captained Australia briefly during the tumultuous era of World Series Cricket (WSC) in the late 1970s. A technically correct left-handed batsman, Yallop invariably batted near the top of the order for Australia during a stop-start career that began in 1975–76 against the West Indies. In 1978, Yallop made history as the first player to wear a full helmet in a Test match. He also enjoyed a long and successful career with his home state Victoria, leading them to two Sheffield Shield titles. Yallop remains the "forgotten" captain of Australia, as his profile is considerably less than contemporaries such as the Chappell brothers and Allan Border. More than any other Australian player, Yallop suffered from the chaos of the WSC split.
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[edit] Early Test Career
Aged 23, Yallop made his Test debut against the 1975–76 West Indians at Sydney. Several of his teammates were upset that an out of form Rick McCosker had been left out to accommodate Yallop and promptly ignored him. Against the wishes of the selectors, captain Greg Chappell batted Yallop at number three, ahead of both Ian and Greg Chappell, using the rationale that McCosker batted there. Still, Yallop put his head down to make the most of the opportunity, playing the last three Tests of the series and averaging 44. Then, inexplicably, he was dumped for the first time, but by no means the last.
When the WSC defections hit, Yallop was not instantly recalled to the Test team. He had to wait until the final Test against India in 1977–78 and he promptly hit 121, his first Test century. Chosen for the following tour to the West Indies, Yallop was one of the few Australian players to stand up to the express bowling of the opposition, although he was prompted to wear a helmet in the Test match at Barbados following a blow to the jaw in a tour match. He made history as the first man to do so. In four Tests he scored three half-centuries, accumulating 317 runs at 45.29.
[edit] "A Lamb To The Slaughter"
Yallop had played just five Tests in the previous three years (for a total of eight) when suddenly, with Australia's best players still playing WSC, he was appointed captain for the 1978–79 Ashes series. These were desperate times, but most observers thought veteran John Inverarity (who was not of test class as a player) would have been a more astute choice once the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) decided that the veteran incumbent Bobby Simpson could not be guaranteed the captaincy for the season.
The unprepared and unsupported Yallop made a naïve prediction before the series when he said that his team would win 6–0. Yallop was "bewildered" when his "flippant" prediction was reported straight-faced by the media and taken seriously by the English players. The undermanned Australian team was annihilated 5–1, its worst thrashing in a Test series. However, history has judged Yallop harshly - at one point, Australia led by 142 runs on the first innings at Sydney, and nearly levelled the series 2-2. As Yallop's authority disintegrated, his ability to make runs held up and he scored centuries in the first and last Tests. His 121 in the sixth Test at Sydney was a lone masterpiece as the team scored a meagre total of 198 and the second top score was 16. Yallop led the team in a Test against Pakistan just weeks later and lost again. He injured himself in a club match, which forced him out of the second (and last) Test in the series when Australia finally reversed their losing streak under Kim Hughes. Yallop was then unceremoniously dumped as captain.
At the end of the summer, he wrote a book on his season's experiences, entitled Lambs To The Slaughter. On page one Yallop commented that "I should be bitter, but I am not," which fooled nobody. The chapter headings "Sacked", "The First Killing", "Skinned Alive", "Slaughtered" revealed his true feelings on his experience, hinting at an anger and hurt that was left partly unexplained. This tome may well have contributed to how his career unfolded when the ACB allowed the WSC players back into the Test team.
[edit] Post-WSC
While fellow ACB-loyal players Kim Hughes and Allan Border enjoyed selection surety even when struggling with form, Yallop drifted in and out of the team with the breeze. Often, he was selected to plug a middle-order gap when Greg Chappell declined to tour. As an opener, he made 167 against India at Calcutta in 1979, but was dumped one Test later. The following year, he scored an elegant 172 against Pakistan at Faisalabad yet found himself on the outer two Tests afterwards. Although one of the many Australian batsman who struggled on the 1981 Ashes tour, Yallop hit 114 at Old Trafford then was again dropped two games later. After a golden summer of form in the Sheffield Shield in 1982–83, he was finally given an extended run of Tests in Australia during the season of 1983–84. His monumental 268, scored over two days in the Boxing Day Test against the Pakistanis, was the highlight of a series when he totaled 554 runs at 92.33 average. Fllowing the retirement of the "big three" (Dennis Lillee, Greg Chappell and Rod Marsh) in 1984, the experience that Yallop could have offered was not utilised. Instead, his international career was over after just two more Tests.
Yallop must carry some blame for this fickleness. Englishman Mike Brearley (his opposite number in the 1978–79 series) noted that Yallop used to "... slide his back foot to and fro in a grandmotherly shuffle ... More than most Test players, Yallop can range from the inept to the masterly." In his final Test, in November 1984, Yallop failed against the West Indian fast bowlers. In scoring 2 and 1, he looked very uncomfortable. An injury sustained while making a sliding save in a one-day match ended his season. Much was made of Yallop's susceptibility to fast bowling because of an unusual incident on the 1981 tour of England. Skipper Kim Hughes shepherded him from Bob Willis's bowling, even though Yallop never asked him to. Commentating on the match, Richie Benaud called Hughes's actions "as curious a captaincy decision as I have ever seen". Undoubtedly, Yallop was more at home against slow bowling and was considered one of the best players of spinners during an era when few existed. Although not ideally suited to the one-day game, Yallop's ODI figures are good and he played in the World Cups of 1979 and 1983. He was a safe fielder behind the wicket and was often positioned in the gully.
[edit] Summary
Some statistics underline Yallop's ability. He averaged better than one century every five Tests and never went more than six consecutive Tests without a hundred. Batting first wicket down, his Test average is 52.42, which beats legendary number threes such as Neil Harvey, Ian Chappell, David Boon and Ricky Ponting. In his final seven Tests, Yallop scored 655 runs at 72. Unfortunately for Yallop, as he wrote in Lambs To The Slaughter:
My name is now eternally entrenched in the record books as the man who led this country to that ignominious hiding against England.
Yallop finished his major cricket career in South Africa as a member of the rebel Australian team led by Kim Hughes. There was no little irony that the two men, who had led the official Australian team during the dark days of WSC, were now playing for private promoters. It was a measure of the disorganisation that befell Australian cricket in the mid-1980s. After two seasons in South Africa without major success, Yallop returned to the relative obscurity of district cricket in Melbourne, playing for the South Melbourne and Ringwood clubs.
[edit] References
- Yallop, Graham (1979). Lambs to the Slaughter. Outback Press, Collingwood. ISBN 0 86888 227 5.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Bob Simpson |
Australian Test cricket captains 1978/9 |
Succeeded by Kim Hughes |
| Preceded by Bob Simpson |
Australian One-day International cricket captains 1978/9 |
Succeeded by Kim Hughes |
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Yallop, Graham Neil |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Cricketer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 7, 1952 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
