Remembering the brief international career of Phil Carlson

Phil Carlson, the 1970s Queensland and Australia all-rounder, died in July this year. His passing was overshadowed by the other high-profile cricket deaths of 2022, but it made me pause, and I’m sure there were others, because Queensland cricket fans always had a soft spot for him.

Carlson was an all-rounder who was exciting when on song and exciting when off song, and he provided great service to his state during the 1970s, an up-and-down period for Queensland, to put it mildly.

He was one of the few players to take ten wickets and score a century in a first-class match, and he got to play Test and ODI cricket during the legendary 1978-79 Ashes series. So I figured he deserved a tribute.

Carlson was born in 1951. He represented Queensland Colts as a wicketkeeper and was selected for the Queensland Shield side as a specialist batter in 1969-70 aged just 18 years and five months. At the time only Don ‘can you believe my Test batting average was 17’ Tallon had started younger for Queensland, at 17 years and ten months). Carlson became a state regular in 1970-71 and was a key member of the side for the next decade.

When he started playing, Queensland were the easybeats of the Sheffield Shield. There were some stars, like Tony Dell, Sam Trimble, John Maclean, Bob Paulsen, Malcolm Francke, Geoff Dymock and Trevor Hohns, plus imports like former Indian test batter Rusi Surti and former English player Tom Graveney, but from 1964-65 until 1972-73 there was only one season in which Queensland where didn’t come last.

Carlson’s nickname was ‘Port’ after Portnoy’s Complaint, the Philip Roth novel which shared the same initials as the all-rounder.

Carlson’s value to Queensland increased in 1971-72 when he started bowling regularly – Sam Trimble had been impressed by his efforts in the nets. He scored his debut first-class century that summer, aged only 20, making 101 against New South Wales and picking up 3-44 into the bargain.

“He’s the nearest thing to an Australian player we have seen in Brisbane for a few years,” gushed New South Wales captain Brian Taber at the time, while former test batter Bill Brown called Carlson’s innings the finest he had seen for an initial first-class century – although Carlson had been dropped when on 27, 28 and 100.

Later that season against South Australia he took 6-32, including both Chappell brothers, to help bowl Queensland to a narrow victory. There was some talk Carlson might go to England in 1972 as an all-rounder – he was Queensland’s leading run scorer that season with 502 runs at 38.6 – but the selectors went for Graeme Watson and John Inverarity instead. According to contemporary press reports, the selectors weren’t that impressed it took Carlson two hours to score 39 for Queensland against the touring World XI.

It was a shame, as Carlson’s bowling might have done well on English pitches. In 1973 he did play for Bacup in the Lancashire League, making 686 runs at 30 and taking 64 wickets at 15. He had a bad domestic season in 1972-73, making only 166 first-class runs at an average of ten.

Things turned around for Queensland in 1973-74 when Greg Chappell moved there. After his arrival the state came second in the Shield for four of the next five seasons. This was not due just to Chappell but also to other imports, both interstate (Ian Davis, Gary Cosier, Jeff Thomson) and overseas (Majid Khan, Alvin Kallicharran, Viv Richards) plus even some native-born Queenslanders, like Martin Kent, David Ogilvie and Carlson.

Interestingly, Carlson claims he didn’t get much of a bowl under Chappell’s captaincy. He later declared – in an excellent profile done on Carlson in 2014 by Peter Hanlon – that ”Greg Chappell was the best player I played with, the best batter I saw, but he always thought he could bowl better than me. I don’t think he was right.”

Some random stuff I discovered researching this piece: in December 1976 Carlson and football player William Thomas were charged with breaking and entering a house in Tweed Heads and stealing an electric drill, a fishing rod and some money. In April 1977 Carlson was committed for trial on this charge. I’m not sure what happened after that – it didn’t seem to stop his cricketing career.

In February 1977 Carlson played a key role in one of the all-time classic Sheffield Shield games. Queensland needed 263 runs to win in the second innings against South Australia. They were 1-138 when the wickets started collapsing, Queensland style, but Carlson kept them in the game with a swashbuckling knock of 65. In the last over Queensland needed four runs to win with three wickets in hand but lost those three wickets – all runouts, including Carlson – and the game ended in a tie, only the second in Shield history. Ah, Queensland…

When World Series Cricket hit in 1977, spots opened up in the Australia side. In 1977-78 Carlson made 615 first-class runs at 41, including two centuries, and took 12 wickets at 40. One of the centuries was against Western Australia, although according to a contemporary report “the number of times Carlson mistimed, miscued or just plain missed was only matched by the number of times he readjusted his concentration and faced up unperturbed to the next ball”. His performances weren’t quite enough to break into the national team. Carlson’s main competitor for a spot was Victoria’s Trevor Laughlin, a similar bits-and-pieces all-rounder who was picked to go on the 1978 tour of the West Indies and wound up playing two Tests. In April 1978 Carlson and Ian Brayshaw represented Australia and a double-wicket cricket competition in England.

When Carlson began the 1978-79 summer he was living in Childers, working in the agricultural industry, and had to commute 300 kilometres to Brisbane for Shield games. His season started strongly with a game against Victoria, scoring 61 and taking 2-19 and 4-32, bowling Queensland to victory. Reporting on this match, the Sydney Morning Herald wrote Carlson “has long been pressing for selection” in the Australian side. He then took three wickets against Western Australia.

Cricket ball

Carlson was captaining Queensland Country in a game against the touring English side when he heard he was picked in Australia’s squad for the first Test. Others in the team were Graeme Wood, Gary Cosier, Graham Yallop (captain), Kim Hughes, Peter Toohey, Trevor Laughlin, John Maclean, Bruce Yardley, Rodney Hogg, Alan Hurst and Jim Higgs.

English journalist Chris Martin Jenkins reported on Carlson’s selection saying, “Carlson, tall, straight-backed, fair-haired and good-looking in a Scandinavian way, heard the news in the middle of his innings against England as captain of the country eleven. He had been on the verge of national selection since making a century for Queensland at the age of eighteen [Martin-Jenkins was off by two years]. Now, ten years later, newly married and with his greatest ambition apparently about to be fulfilled, life had suddenly turned rosy for him. As a cricketer he had grown in stature since Greg Chappell left the Queensland scene for Packerland. But despite a good season in 1977-78 he had not been picked for Australia’s tour of the West Indies, and he had been on the verge of ‘giving the game away’ until his brother, who shared with him a business selling fertilisers to the sugar-cane farmers near Childers, persuaded him to go on. ‘Boy, am I glad I did!’, he said when he heard the news in the tea interval at Bundaberg.”

After his selection, and prior to the first Test, Carlson played for Queensland against England. He scored one and 37 with the bat and took 0-48 and 1-29 with the ball. Chris Martin Jenkins reported on Carlson’s second innings: “His technique was an interesting one which did not inspire much confidence in those watching him. He gave himself a good deal of room – and the bowlers a good deal of hope – but he hit the ball hard, almost exclusively off the back foot. He made 37 before being bowled by a ball from Botham which came back a long way.”

Mike Brearley, in his account of the tour, recalls the team discussed Carlson prior to the first Test. “We speculated (correctly) that he would be twelfth man. He looked a useful bowler, with a good bouncer, and he could swing the ball either way. He could be surprising, we thought, and we shouldn’t underestimate him because nearly all of us had had trouble with him in the Queensland match. As far as his batting was concerned, he could perhaps be bounced out. We should avoid pitching balls up to him as he was a good driver”.

Carlson was indeed made 12th man for the first Test. The Australian selectors’ first big mistake for this game was not picking John Inverarity, which meant Graham Yallop was captain. Their second big mistake was playing Trevor Laughlin at No. 6 without also selecting Carlson to counterbalance him at seven. This meant Australia went into that game with just five specialist batters – this, combined with bunnies Alan Hurst and Jim Higgs at Nos. 10 and 11, led to a very weak batting line-up.

Why did they do it?

(Credit: Wolliwoo/CC BY-NC 2.0)

Well, I think the presence of Ian Botham made the selectors silly. They didn’t notice Botham was more effective when partnered with another all-rounder, Geoff Miller. Australia should’ve picked Inverarity over Laughlin, but if they wanted to play Laughlin, they should’ve played Carlson as well instead of Yardley or Higgs. Why play two spinners at the Gabba? Making it worse, the Gabba conditions would have suited Carlson’s bowling. “I would have loved to have gone out and had a go at it,” he recalled later.

Australia lost that first Test mostly due to their dodgy batting. Would it have made any difference to play Carlson instead of Yardley or Higgs, who bowled only 13 overs between them in the first innings? It’s impossible to tell of course, but surely it couldn’t have hurt. The batting would’ve had a lot more starch at the very least.

For the second Test the selectors replaced Trevor Laughlin with Rick Darling and kept Carlson in the team, although he was made 12th man again. Australia lost this game too, once more mostly due to batting.

Carlson was then dropped from the third Test side in favour of Jim Higgs. According to Carlson, “I said to [selector] Phil Ridings, ‘Mate, I didn’t drop the drinks!’“. He missed the next two Tests but was kept on in the side for the first ODI, which was called off due to rain.

In January 1978 Carlson played the game of his life for Queensland against New South Wales, making 24 and 102 not out and taking 5-46 and 5-27. This made him only the second person to score a century and take ten wickets in the same game in the history of the Sheffield Shield. The first was George Giffen in 1892-93.

“Carlson is easily the best all-rounder in Australia today,” enthused Queensland teammate Gary Cosier. “He must certainly have given the Australian selectors something to think about.”

The selectors picked Carlson for the second ODI but this too was called off due to rain. In the words of Martin Jenkins, “He must have wondered if he would ever take the field for his country”.

Carlson then played against South Australia for Queensland, scoring 88 and 50. “I feel like I’m hitting the ball really well and I’m certainly hopeful of making the fifth test team,” he said.

And indeed Carlson was recalled to the Australian side for the fifth Test, replacing Geoff Dymock. The Sydney Morning Herald thought “by bringing in Carlton the selectors are chancing their arm. His including will be as much in the hope that he is able to score runs as is the fact that he might trouble the England batsman with his medium pace”.

David Gower wrote in his tour diary, “We’re not bothered about Carlson, we think Dymock’s unlucky to be dropped. Carlson’s an average performer, with his medium-pace stuff more suited to English conditions. With the bat he didn’t enjoy Goose [Bob Wllis] too much in the Queensland match, and we think he’ll be vulnerable to the short-pitched stuff”.

Brearley: “The Australian selectors were constantly in the same dilemma, brought about by the dearth of all-rounders: how to combine a well-balanced bowling attack with reasonable depth of batting. They would probably have won the fourth Test if Yardley had been selected: now they brought him in, together with Carlson, the all-rounder who had been twelfth man for the first two Tests. These two replaced [Peter] Toohey and Dymock, both of whom we were glad to see out of the side”.

It really wasn’t a good selection. Australia had lost the first, second and fourth Tests due to bad batting despite excellent bowling and were now playing Carlson at No. 6. In a bowling-strong, batting-weak side, we had strengthened the bowling and weakened the batting. Maybe the selectors just got swept up in the romance of Carlson’s efforts against New South Wales. Maybe they could’ve got away with it teaming Carlson and Trevor Laughlin, but they didn’t.

Prior to the fifth Test, Carlson played in the third ODI in tandem with Laughlin, scoring 11 and going for 1-21 with the ball. That wasn’t bad. Maybe things would be alright.

Yeah, but no. Carlson’s Test debut was another heavy defeat for Australia. He did well with the ball, taking 0-34 and 2-41, but badly with the bat, making zero and 21. Carlson claimed he didn’t hit the Botham delivery that got him for a duck, recalling “I’d had a few run-ins with [umpire] Max O’Connell. I thought he was hopeless. We moved into each other’s dressing rooms that night, and Botham said, ‘Bad luck, Port, you didn’t get near that. But cricket’s cricket.’

David Firth confirmed this, saying “the really unsettling thing about” Carlson’s dismissal “was that Carlson appeared not to have touched the ball”.

Carlson at least bowled well. Martin Jenkins praised the Queenslander’s “excellent spell of steady seam bowling very reminiscent in pace and style to similar spells delivered for England by Basil D’Oliveira”.

Australia bounced back to win the next two ODIs, helped by Carlson’s tight bowling (1-27, 0-22), and the all-rounder kept his spot for the next Test match.

This game went even worse for Australia and Carlson. We lost again, he scored two and nothing and took 0-24.
Australia had lost the series 5-1.

Describing his first innings, Martin-Jenkins wrote, “Enter Carlson, with an opportunity on an easy-paced pitch to prove he was of Test class. He did not take it. Botham got a ball to lift on the off-stump, the batsman failed to get over it, and Gooch held a straightforward catch at third slip”.

Gower wrote “Carlson again looks unconvincing against speed, fending a bouncer to slip”/

You can see that dismissal here 12:15 seconds in:

To make it worse, his bowling wasn’t as effective in this game. Martin Jenkins said Carlson “was unable to swing the ball as he had done at Adelaide”. You can see him bowl at 4:30 here:

After this match Bill O’Reilly wrote, “What they [the selectors] expected to get, other than what they ultimately did get from Phil Carlson as an all-rounder, would be well worth an explanation. The Queenslander did not stand a chance against a short ball coming up straight at his body. Everybody knew it – especially Bob Willis who took such obvious pains to remind Ian Botham about it in the first innings”.

Carlson was dropped along with Peter Toohey and Bruce Yardley for the Australian team to play the first Test against Pakistan. They were replaced by Trevor Laughlin, Dav Whatmore and Peter Sleep. When Laughlin fell injured, the selectors discussed recalling Carlson but ended up going with Wayne Clark instead.

In late February 1979 Carlson was reprimanded by Neil Blundell, the SACA secretary, after his actions when being dismissed for two in a Shield game against South Australia. Apparently Carlson lingered at the crease after he was dismissed – Max O’Connell was the umpire – and then vented in the dressing room afterwards and was overheard by Blundell.

By the end of the 1978-79 season Carlson had made 545 first-class runs at 30 and taken 31 wickets at 15.16. However, he was overlooked for selection in the squads for the 1979 Cricket World Cup – Gary Cosier and Trevor Laughlin went as the all-rounders – and the 1979 tour of India, which featured no all-rounders, with Graeme Porter taking the ‘miserly medium pacer’ role.

Carlson had a decent summer in 1979-80 – 415 first-class runs at 27.66, 27 wickets at 26.25 – including a man-of-the-match double against South Australia with 4-23 and 84. However, he was never able to get back into the Australian team. While I think Carlson was lucky to play his two Tests, it was a shame he wasn’t given more opportunity as an ODI player, especially as Australia didn’t really find a regular ODI all-rounder until Simon O’Donnell.

Carlson’s last first-class summer was 1980-81. In November 1980 he pulled out of the Queensland team in a McDonald’s Cup match saying he had not been given enough notice of his inclusion in the side. His last first-class game was a Shield match against NSW in Sydney in which he scored a duck and took one wicket. Bizarrely, this was also the first Sheffield Shield match I ever went to see – I’d gone to watch Allan Border bat and was instead stuck with a Trevor Chappell century.

Carlson played 91 first-class games (4167 runs at 28.34, 124 wickets at 24.96) plus 25 one-day matches (371 runs at 20.61, 25 wickets at 23.60). That’s very handy. Not really ‘should’ve played so many more tests’ handy but a record to be proud of.

After cricket, Carlson worked successfully in property. He had health issues, being diagnosed with diabetes, and in 2014 reported to The Age: “I’ve got a few brain issues, frontal temporal lobe issues. It’s dementia, but it’s not dementia yet, if you know what I mean.

“I don’t like it at all.

“I’ve got two grandkids, soon to be three grandkids, and three other children who haven’t started [a family] yet. I’d love to think I’m gunna be around and get to know them all. But the jury’s out, I don’t really know where I’m going.

“I still love hitting the golf ball around, and I still love being with my kids and my grandkids. Life’s too good not to be here. I want to be here as long as I can, mate.”

That was seven years ago. He died on 29 July 2022 at the age of 70.

Rest in peace, PC.