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John Gleeson, Australian spin bowler – obituary
John Gleeson, the Australian spin bowler, who has died aged 78, proved a baffling proposition for batsmen when, at the late age of 28, he suddenly emerged into first-class cricket.
As a child Gleeson had read an article in Sporting Life about Jack Iverson, the Australian bowler who had bamboozled England in the series of 1950-51. Iverson had a new method of spin, holding the ball between his thumb and his second finger, which he bent and used almost as a spring in his delivery. This method enabled Iverson to bowl leg-breaks, off-breaks and googlies with well-nigh impenetrable disguise. Gleeson played around with Iverson’s techniques for years in practice, and found his long fingers well suited to the experiment. Yet for years in club cricket he turned out simply as a wicketkeeper and batsman.
Not until he was 26 did he begin to bowl in matches, with immediate success. The next season he played against a touring side that included Richie Benaud, who was completely baffled by his unreadable spin, and determined that such potential should not be left in the provinces.
Benaud introduced Gleeson to Balmain Club in Sydney, where he did so well that the state cricketing authorities were soon eager to co-opt him. So in December 1966 Gleeson played in his first Sheffield Shield match, against West Australia in Perth.
He took only one wicket, and was twelfth man for the next game, against South Australia in Adelaide. “Well, that’s the first mistake you have made in this match,” observed Sir Donald Bradman to Brian Booth, the New South Wales captain. In truth he was disappointed not to see the new phenomenon.
Bradman, then 58, therefore hauled Gleeson off to the nets, and stood in his suit at the batsman’s end (albeit without a bat) while the neophyte bowled to him. He found himself unable to read the spin, and was hit on the hip by a ball which turned in an unexpected direction. “By the end of the season,” Bradman pronounced, “I think you will be playing for Australia.” He was very nearly correct.
The eldest of three sons, John William Gleeson was born on March 14 1938 in the tiny village of Wiangaree, near Kyogle in north New South Wales. His father was a railway builder and later ran the village post office and telephone exchange.
John left Kyogle High School at 15 for a job as a telephone technician in the Postmaster General’s department, settling down at Tamworth, some 200 miles north of Sydney. He would work in telephones for his entire career, whereas his time in first-class cricket lasted only six years.
After his encounter with Bradman, he began to take wickets for New South Wales, and was selected for Australia’s “A” tour of New Zealand in 1967. He had played only 15 first-class matches before his first Test, against India at Adelaide, in December 1967.
He performed steadily rather than dramatically in Test cricket. Not being as tall as Iverson he felt obliged to push the ball through rather faster, which meant that, with his accuracy, he was often used to close up one end, while Australia’s fast men (Graham McKenzie and, from 1971, Dennis Lillee) led the attack.
If Gleeson did not spin the ball as much as Iverson had done, he could perhaps claim greater variety in his often impenetrable mixture of off- and leg-breaks. He did well in England in 1968, taking 58 wickets on the tour, at a cost of 20.65 apiece. But in the Tests that summer he proved less of a threat.
Back in Australia in 1968-69, Gleeson enjoyed an outstanding series against the West Indies, whose batsmen included Rohan Kanhai, Seymour Nurse, Garry Sobers and Clive Lloyd. Against such brilliance a return of 26 wickets, albeit at an average of 32.46, was highly creditable and played a crucial part in Australia’s triumph. Twice that series, in the first Test at Brisbane and the second at Melbourne, Gleeson claimed five wickets in an innings.
He did not do much in India at the end of 1969, and was omitted from the last two Tests in favour of Ashley Mallett. By contrast he was one of the very few Australians to emerge with credit from four heavy Test defeats in South Africa early in 1970. If his 19 wickets in that series cost him 38.96 each, this was by no means disgraceful against batsmen of the calibre of Graham Pollock and Barry Richards.
When Pollock hammered 274 in the second Test at Durban, Gleeson was left with figures of three for 160 from 51 overs. Yet in the next Test, at Johannesburg, he returned highly respectable analyses of three for 61 and five for 125. Back in Australia in 1970-71, his bowling against England proved costly, so that he was dropped for the final Test. Nor did he restore his reputation in England in 1972. After the third Test he was never able to regain his place in the Australian side.
An unsuccessful season in 1972-73 ended Gleeson’s career for New South Wales, though he then did well in South Africa, playing for D H Robins XI in 1974-75 and for Eastern Province in 1975-76, when he was voted South African Cricketer of the Year.
In total Gleeson played in 117 first-class matches, taking 430 wickets at an average of 24.95. His best analysis was seven for 52 for New South Wales against Queensland in 1972. As a batsman he scored 1,095 runs @ 11.06. There was one half-century, 59 against Canterbury at Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1967.
In his 29 Tests he claimed 93 victims at 36.20 apiece. The 395 runs which he scored for Australia (highest score 45 against the West Indies at Sydney in 1969) left him with an average of 10.39.
In contrast to many of his team-mates Gleeson was far from rumbustious, and showed no disposition to sledge. His habit of disappearing completely after a day’s play led to his being labelled CHO (Cricket Hours Only), and provoked wild speculation as to his whereabouts among his team mates. After retiring from cricket he lived happily and undemonstratively in Tamworth for the rest of his days.
John Gleeson is survived by his wife Sandra, and by their two sons and two daughters.
John Gleeson, born March 14 1938, died October 7 2016