In March 1977, the Centenary Test match between Australia and England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground attracted nearly a quarter of a million spectators and dominated the media at a time when Australian football codes were just beginning to transgress upon the summer sports.

Although the game was promoted as a one-off fixture to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the very first cricket Test, it was played with the vigour of any Ashes clash. Remarkably, the margin of Australia’s victory, 45 runs, was exactly the same as it had been in that first Test in 1877.

Rick McCosker batted with a broken jaw and spin bowler Kerry O’Keeffe successfully opened the batting in the second innings, but the biggest buzz was around a blond-haired leftie from South Australia making his debut.

David Hookes reeled off four consecutive boundaries from the high release medium pace of arch-villain Tony Greig – high excitement in a cricketing era when Geoff Boycott might nurdle a dozen runs in a session and breathe content.

Hookes’ approach, it was predicted, would be the way of the future in Test cricket. Swashing and buckling his way through the game’s best bowlers, protected merely by the cloth and cardboard of a baggy green, he had no fear, no inclination to limit his strokeplay and no coaching manual to stifle his individuality. As the contemporary player would put it, “see ball, hit ball”.

Kerry Packer brought........

© The Age