Opinion
“By the barest of margins” will go down as perhaps the most famous phrase in cricket in the last 12 months.
When New Zealand were defeated in the World Cup final by England (and by the rule about the number of boundaries), this is how Ian Smith described the agonising loss of his fellow Kiwis. It is a phrase that also applies to the retirement interview given by Stephen O’Keefe this week.
In an honest and open reflection on his forced retirement from first-class cricket, he ended by making a typically cheeky comment about his own batting. What agony must be felt by a cricketer when they are dismissed or left stranded on 99 with the failure to achieve the century by that barest of margins?
As O’Keefe pointed out, it is a feeling that he certainly had when Jackson Bird induced an edge to what seems to have been a wandering slip against Tasmania in Hobart in 2015. He admitted that he “absolutely froze” after three hours in the middle on “the flattest wicket in the world”.
This was one of 12 times that he reached a half century in his first-class career of 87 matches and clearly it still haunts him.
Yet he was able to point out that he is not alone among Australian Test spin bowlers in having 99 as his highest first-class score. Most famously, Shane Warne lost his head when on 99 he holed out to Daniel Vettori in Perth in 2001.
Replays have since shown Vettori’s front foot landed well over the front line and Warne has been able to make plenty of mileage about this miscarriage of justice ever since it was revealed.
O’Keefe specifically mentioned Warne’s 99 when saying: “So if ever you want to use me and Warney in the same sentence, as much as he’d hate it, we’ve both got a highest first-class score of 99”. The back story to this is Warne’s savage criticism of O’Keefe’s performance with the ball in India in 2017 in Pune in the first session of the Test match.
While everyone adjourned for lunch, the left-arm spinner stayed on the field, bowling to try to find his form. It certainly worked because after lunch he took 6-35 – a feat he remarkably replicated with the same figures in the second innings.
One of the others mentioned in the interview was Kerry O’Keeffe, who has again made great fun of himself in relaying the tale of being left 99 not out by Ashley Mallett in a first-class tour match in Auckland in 1973-74.
This remained his highest score in 146 first-class games.
Gavin Robertson, who played four Tests as an off spinner in 1998, also finished his career with a best of 99 in first-class cricket. This was one of his six half centuries in 58 first-class matches.
However, incredibly, there is another Test spinner whose highest first-class score is 99 and who O’Keefe failed to mention. Beau Casson, the left-arm orthodox Western Australian, made a 99 against South Australia for New South Wales off 180 balls at the SCG in 2007-08. He went on to be involved in the NSW cricket coaching set-up when O’Keefe was playing. He needs to give his fellow spinner a reminder about his best effort, which left him one short of the magical three figures.
There have been other near misses by Australian Test spinners. The highest first-class scores of Bruce Yardley (97 not out), Ashley Mallett (92), Rex Sellers (87) and Terry Jenner (86) show a trend among these post World War Two spinners.
Ashton Agar’s 98 is the most recent near miss in his enthralling partnership with Phil Hughes in 2013 at Trent Bridge. However, he has since had the pleasure of reaching the three figures twice for his state, unlike these five spinners, who will forever be left on 99.
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