Tributes are flowing for legendary Australian Test cricket captain and coach Bob Simpson, who has died in Sydney at the age of 89.
Renowned as a giant of the game as a player and coach, Simpson played 62 Tests from 1957-78 and was also the national men’s coach during the 1980s and ’90s, rebuilding the team alongside captain Allan Border.
Although it took him 30 Tests to score his first hundred, Simpson went on to make 10 centuries and 27 half-centuries at a superb average of 46.81.
He was also a masterful fielder, particularly in the slips, and held the national record by the time he retired with 110 catches.
A handy leg-spin bowler, he also took 71 wickets, including two five-wicket hauls.
His first Test ton was a stuff of legend – he batted for almost 13 hours to convert his maiden century into 311 at Old Trafford during the 1964 Ashes tour.
Along with Bill Lawry, he formed one of Australia’s greatest opening duos of all time.
After retiring in 1868, he was coaxed back to the national team nearly a decade later when Australia were decimated by World Series Cricket defections and played 10 more Tests, which included two hundreds, averaging 52.83 in 1977 and 32.38 the following year despite being in his early 40s.
As a coach, he was known as a hard taskmaster who instilled discipline into an Australian team which was at one of its lowest ebbs in the mid 1980s.
Simpson drilled physical fitness and the importance of fielding into the team and gradually, with Border as skipper, they turned the tide to win the 1987 World Cup, regain the Ashes and eventually become the top-ranked team in Test cricket, highlighted by the successful 1995 tour of the Caribbean where they finally knocked over the West Indies.
He finished up as coach the following year.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese posted a tribute to Simpson on social media, lauding his commitment to cricket.
“Bob Simpson’s extraordinary service to Australian cricket spanned generations. As a player, captain and then era-defining coach, he set the highest of standards for himself and the champions he led. He will be long remembered by the game he loved. May he rest in peace.”
Born in Sydney in 1936, he made his first-class debut as a teenager in the 1952-53 Sheffield Shield season for NSW and was just 21 when he made his Test debut against South Africa at Johannesburg.
He made 60 and 23 not out in his first match and was a fixture in the Australian team for the next decade.
After succeeding Richie Benaud as captain in the early 1960s, he led Australia 39 times.
In 1964 he set a world record with 1381 runs for the calendar year and was named Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1965.
Simpson was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1978, inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985 and also received an Australian Sports Medal, was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame, made an Officer of the Order of Australia and inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.