KEN PIESSE, author of more than 60 books on cricket, pays tribute to one of his heroes Bob Cowper who died this week, aged 84.

So effortlessly sublime and exquisite was the quality of Bob Cowper’s silky stroke-play, that Australia’s Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies would have his chauffeur take him down to tiny Glenferrie Oval to watch Hawthorn-East Melbourne bat on a Saturday afternoon. The PM’s luxurious black Bentley would often be seen parked in Linda Crescent almost behind the bowler’s arm. Once Cowper was out, off they’d go again.

Cowper, a blond six-footer, beautifully balanced and artistic like a modern-day David Gower or Kumar Sangakkara, was a hero for so many of us growing up in the ‘60s.

An MCG Test high of 307, an in-Australia average of 75 and two memorable centuries in the Caribbean against the intimidating West Indian express bowlers Hall and Griffith in the unofficial Test championship of the world remain intrinsic to one of the game’s most notable, who left the game before he’d even peaked.

A young Greg Chappell marvelled at Cowper’s simple organisation at the crease. ‘Like Bill Lawry, he must have had a very mature mental routine,’ he said. ‘If we had gone to England in ‘72 with Lawry, Redpath, Cowper and McKenzie instead of Francis, Colley and Watson, we would have been unbeatable!’

But Cowper had already moved on. He was 27 when he walked away from Test cricket and 29 when he played his last full Sheffield Shield season, captaining Victoria to the 1969-70 title, the most memorable moment of all – ahead even of his 307.

Having studied commerce at Melbourne University he became a merchant banker and for 28 years was based in Monaco. He may have been wealthy but he had no pretentions. Despite his long-time battle with cancer, he’d regularly meet his trusted Olds & Bolds mates for lunch and a chardonnay or two at Romeo’s in Toorak.  Last September he was their guest speaker and was articulate, intelligent and typically forceful.  He’d always baulked at my suggestions of having his life story published, but in the lead-up to the 50^thanniversary of Victoria’s 1969-70 title, he gladly was involved in the preparation of a commemorative booklet, Bob’s Boy’s printed in a limited edition of 307, celebrating his triple-100. His engaging captaincy united an inexperienced squad and he was among 14 of the team to sign all 307 copies, the last 50 or so over a wine in his luxurious inner-city apartment where he and wife Dale had lived for 15 years having moved from the NSW south coast.

He was in his element at the reunion, loving the banter and tall stories and true.

This particular season, Cowper had just begun stepping out with the love of his life, wife-to-be Dale, who had separated from her husband. The team was in Adelaide. It was 100 degrees in the shade, yet amongst the crowd, most in shorts and thongs was one tall, very formidable figure dressed in a Great Coat. Victoria’s manager Bill Jacobs had an impish sense of humour and calling 12^th man John Ward over, he scribbled a note and told Ward to run it out to Cowper straight away.

‘But it’s almost drinks Fage (Jacobs),’ Ward said.

‘That’s all right. Just get it out there. And hurry now.’

Just minutes earlier Jacobs had been told there would be a 21-gun salute right on noon.

In the note, he told Cowper to look across to backward square and the big fella in the huge green coat standing behind a post. ‘That’s Dale husband,’ he wrote. ‘Apparently he’s not too happy with you. Who knows what he’s got under that coat…’

Right on noon, the ‘boom-boom-boom’ of the guns started and Cowper, fearing for his life, dived for cover. ‘You’ve never ever seen anyone hit the ground quicker,’ said Ward. ‘I’d been able to tip the boys off and we were all shrieking with laughter. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen in sport.’

Known to everyone in cricket as ‘Wal’, short for ‘Wallaby’, Cowper’s father Dave was the first Victorian to represent Australia at rugby union. Bob also played for Victoria before his promising cricket career took priority. His brother Dave also played for Victoria, as a wicketkeeper.

His crisp cuts and glides square of the wicket saw him make almost 1000 runs in 1962-63 and be selected by Menzies for the Prime Minister’s XI match against England, in which a 54-year-old Sir Donald Bradman played for the last time.

He’d first played for Victoria as a teenager in the New Year of 1960 and soon was to become the eighth player from Melbourne’s elite Scotch College to play Tests.

His epic 307, still the highest score in 114 MCG Tests, included an unassailable world record twenty-seven 3s, the outfield being wet and soggy and allowing few boundaries.

Ironically, just a fortnight earlier, Bradman had dropped him from the XI, telling him he wasn’t fit enough. It was an omission that always rankled. ‘I was fit enough,’ he said. Not too long before he and Bill Lawry had run two 5s from consecutive balls in a Shield game at the MCG.

His Test colleague Alan Connolly said he once bounced Cowper out in a school’s match – ‘he was caught just as it was disappearing over the fine-leg fence,’ he said. ‘And it was the only time I ever got him out, in the nets or in club games. He was impregnable.’

Cowper could play with wonderful modern-day momentum, one innings at the Gabba of 88 not out coming in little over an hour as Victoria looked to chase victory. He also made a century before lunch against Tom Pearce’s XI at the end of the 1964 Ashes tour, the first of four tours to England (twice), the West Indies and South Africa.

Ironically his best-remembered innings, his triple-100 took 727 minutes, stretching from Saturday to Wednesday because of inclement Melbourne rains.  He was 32 not out on the Saturday night, 159 not out on Monday night and was finally dismissed on the fifth and final day, bowled by Barry Knight. He’d proved his point and was an automatic selection ever after.

A Melbourne club cricketer for almost two decades, in the days when even the internationals played virtual full seasons, he led ‘The Combine’ (Hawthorn-East Melbourne) to the 1971-72 District title, another classic team moment he rated ahead of any of his most decorated solos.

In retirement, he offered to stay in the game and become a club delegate and a state selector, but those around him didn’t have the foresight and vision to realise the opportunity they had to keep him involved. Cowper became a player’s representative in the years of World Series Cricket before leaving for Monaco, acting as an overseas representative to the International Cricket Conference for the Australian Board of Control and building his fortune for Dale and their two girls.

In times of reflection he said if Kerry Packer hadn’t entered the market, ‘someone else would have’. Bradman hadn’t realised the accelerating pace of Test cricket were creating unrealistic demands on the players. He still saw Test cricket as a leisure. Payments for the major tours, to England, were becoming increasingly minuscule. At the annual dinner of the Australian Cricket Society in 1977, Cowper said each member of Bradman’s famous 1948 team could have been able to buy outright a substantial house in inner-city Melbourne and Sydney from the monies on offer. ‘By 1968, we couldn’t even afford the deposit. And we all had jobs. There was no other choice but to work.’

In the Caribbean in ’65 – scene of his bravest innings – he said he was able to contend with the angle of the bent-armed Charlie Griffith better than the right handers. ‘Being a leftie, I could get out of the way, but the right-handers couldn’t,’ he said. ‘Charlie bowled way out on the return crease and the ball just followed them.’

Asked if Wes Hall, who inflicted a direct hit on him years earlier, was his toughest opponent, he smiled and said ‘no.’

‘The best bowler I faced was our own John Smith in the nets at Hawthorn-East Melbourne. He’d bend and seam the ball at will and while he played only a few times for Victoria, he could be unplayable in the nets, especially in the evening dusk.’

From his mid-20s Cowper was a genuine allrounder and in the 1968 Old Trafford Test, took six wickets from 65 overs in Australia’s only Test win of the summer. Previously in South Africa, he dismissed Graeme Pollock four times, bowling into his ‘blind spot’ just behind his pads. ‘I knew how difficult it was to score against balls pitched I that area so I’d go around the wicket and angle it in at him,’ he said.<p>

• Cowper made 10,000-plus first-class runs, average 53, with 26 100s, five in Tests. He was awarded an OAM in 2023. My book ‘Bob’s Boys’, signed by a dozen team members, including Bob and his vice-captain Graeme Watson, is available for $50 posted from cricketbooks.com.au