First Tests: Great Australian Cricketers and the Backyards that Made Them, by Steve Cannane

First Tests: Great Australian Cricketers and the Backyards that Made Them, by Steve Cannane, (Sydney: Harper Collins; 2009), 231 pages.

First Tests is a book about how Australia’s greatest cricketers developed their unique and special skills at home in the backyard. The book contains a series of articles on how players developed individual strengths and skills playing in the backyard, and how the backyard’s location, design and the proximity of windows influenced the development of players’ skills. It is these skills developed over thousands of hours after school and on weekends in the back yard (rather than attendance at professional training camps and academies) that made them great players.

The genesis of this book was a suburban Sydney cricket match where the author observed a team mate make an unorthodox but effective batting shot that both infuriated the bowler and provoked conversation among his team mates. When questioned about the origin of the unorthodox batting shot, the team mate answered that he developed it as a kid playing in his parents’ backyard. In that backyard, the player had to adjust his batting shots to avoid breaking windows. The team mate played shots to avoid breaking windows in the backyard, and continued to play them on the cricket field. As the conversation went around the other players at that suburban cricket match, it seemed that every player had a similar story of a strength or weakness that could be attributed to backyard cricket. This got the author to think that if this is the case for ordinary suburban grade cricketers, then it must be the same for elite cricketers. In a sequence of chapters discussing one cricketer, the author explains in delightful detail how many elite cricket players down through the decades developed their skills in their backyard.

For example, Sir Donald Bradman’s unique batting grip, stance and back lift was developed during batting practice with a golf ball and cricket stump. These unique qualities were developed in response to the speed at which the golf ball rebounded off the water tank stand in his backyard. Greg Chappell’s trademark batting shot, a flick off the hip, was invented in his backyard, where the best opportunities for scoring were on the leg side. Alan Davidson bowled accurately because he had to; as a kid bowling in the backyard, if his bowling missed the stumps on his home-made pitch, he had to chase the ball down the hill into the scrub. Doug Walters played spin bowling with ease because his crushed ant bed home made cricket pitch spun like a top. Neil Harvey developed excellent footwork by playing cricket in the back lane where the ball bounced viciously off the cobblestones. Adam Gilchrist, a powerful and clean hitter of the ball, developed that skill in his backyard batting net where at the end of each daily practice he spent time doing what was natural to him, just hitting the ball.

Cannane also elaborates on the type of discipline needed to become an elite cricket (and buy implication an elite player or competitor in any sport). Those that reached the highest level of the game were veterans of thousands of hours of backyard games, often played against older and more experienced siblings and friends. In these contests players developed their competitive instincts and unrelenting desire for success.

Cannane’s book is an enjoyable and light-hearted reflection on the theme of how childhood habits, developed and practiced for thousands of hours in competitive and determined backyard matches developed skills that helped various players reach the highest level in the sport of cricket. These backyard matches played after school and on weekends (and even in winter) were essential in the formation of many fine cricketers. Cannane’s view is that backyard cricket matches will also be instrumental in the development of the future generations of great players. Cannane has also done a great service by including a detailed bibliography containing the publishing details of many biographies and autobiographies of Australian cricketers. This bibliography alone is worth the purchase price of the book because it gives any cricket lover an instant and accessible first reference source for book by and about Australian cricketers.