It's 40 Years Since World Series Cricket Changed Everything, From
The towering figure of Tony Greig. It’s 40 years since World Series Cricket changed everything, from the way the game was played to the way it was televised – the way, in fact, sport was televised. It introduced coloured apparel, lights, day-night Tests and one-dayers – the list is endless. People look back now with fondness at the WSC revolt, suggested at first by Dennis Lillee, instigated by some of the world’s best players, funded by Kerry Packer. Two of our interviewees, Clive Rice and Tony Greig, are now sadly departed, but our intrepid correspondent, CRISPIN ANDREWS, had long-ago managed to get their thoughts on the Packer revolution. He managed to track down many of the other protagonists recently. Here are their memories of one of the biggest upheavals ever witnessed in world sport. INSIDE CRICKET 51 DECEMBER 2017 Packer faces some of the music he helped create, after the news of WSC broke. n December 2, 1977, an Australian and didn’t hesitate to sign, and then sign up as team captained by Ian Chappell faced “I’D PUT IT ON THE much talent as he could, for Packer’s “circus”, Clive Lloyd’s West Indians at as it was dubbed then. AD O LINE AGAINST LILLEE, Melbourne’s VFL Park. A drop-in playing strip THOMSON, ROBERTS “I’d put it on the line against Lillee, had turned the Aussie rules stadium into a Thomson, Roberts and the others, in front cricket ground of sorts. The Australian team AND THE OTHERS, IN of packed crowds, yet when I was captain was the strong side that had had toured FRONT OF PACKED of England we were paid just £200 a Test,” England earlier that year, with the addition of Greig saidback in 2011.
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