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Will Austin Waugh walk in dad Steve’s footsteps?

Steve Waugh owns an all-time classic Ashes moment. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Expert
23rd April, 2017
16
1494 Reads

Austin Waugh, the son of Aussie legend Steve, is performing promisingly for Australia in the under-19s ODI series against Sri Lanka in Hobart, scoring 40 not out and 60 in the last two matches.

It made me nostalgic, taking me back almost 33 years. On 19 November 1984 a function was held by Cricketers Club of NSW in Sydney to name the Richie Benaud Award winner for the Best Poidevin-Gray Shield under-21s player of 1983-84.

The winner was 18-year-old Mark Waugh, Austin’s uncle – but he could not attend the function as he and his twin brother Steve were then playing youth Test matches for Australia against Sri Lanka in Melbourne.

Both were stars of the series. In the Adelaide Test Mark hit a century and Steve 55. In the next match in Melbourne Steve smashed a spectacular 187 off 216 deliveries.

Back to the present, and last year Austin Waugh top-scored for Metro NSW by slamming an unbeaten century in the final of the national under-17s cricket championships. He belted 122 from 136 balls, hitting four fours and four sixes in the one-day final against Queensland juniors.

Austin scintillated in this championship and was the leading run scorer for NSW Metro at the championships, scoring 372 runs at an average of 74.40. Only Queensland’s Angus Lovell, who hit two centuries and three fifties at 80.17, outscored him.

Cricket Australia’s pathways manager Graham Manou was astonished the first time he saw Austin bat because the similarities with his famous father were striking.

“It was very scary, the first time I saw him, his mannerisms,” Manou said. “Genetically, I suppose you’d expect [it], but it’s like he’s watched a tape of his old man for years. They’re very, very similar.”

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Will Austin Waugh follow dad Steve to international fame? If he does, it will be only the third such instance for Australia.

The first such instance was Edward ‘Ned’ Gregory, who played one Test in 1877, and his and son Syd Gregory, who played in 58 Tests between 1890 and 1912.

The second father-son occurrence was for father Geoff Marsh, who played 50 Tests in the summers of 1985-86 and 1991-92, and his sons Shaun, who has played 23 Tests since 2011-12, and Mitchell, who has 21 Tests to his name since 2014.

Inaugurated 140 years ago, Test cricket is in its fifth generation. Amazingly, the first 100 years were covered by a single family.

William Cooper played his first Test for Australia in December 1881 and his great-grandson Paul Sheahan, the elegant batsman and superb fielder, played the last of his 31 Tests for Australia in January 1974.

Dean Headley created history when he made his Test debut for England against Australia at Manchester in 1997. It was the first instance of three direct generations of Test cricketers.

Dean’s father, Ron, had represented the West Indies in 1973 and his grandfather, the legendary George, had played for the West Indies from 1929 to 1953 with distinction.

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There is only one subsequent instance of three direct generations in Test history.

Pakistan’s Bazid Khan is the son of Majid Khan, the nephew of Imran Khan and the grandson of Jahangir Khan. Bazid and Majid represented Pakistan and grandfather Jahangir India.

The Mohammads have produced four brothers – Wazir, Hanif, Mushtaq and Sadiq – who represented Pakistan. Hanif’s son Shoaib also played 45 Tests. Between them they made 218 Test appearances, which is a record Waugh twins Steve and Mark broke in the new millennium by playing a total of 296 Tests.

India’s Lala Amarnath, New Zealand’s Walter Hadlee and Australia’s Geoff Marsh are the only Test cricketers to each sire two sons who went on to play Test matches.

After watching Austin Waugh bat last year, Peter FitzSimons wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald: “On his current trajectory, in about five years, Steve will be known as father of Austin Waugh.”

This is an overstatement, but let’s wait and watch.

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