October 1974, the Old Kings Oval, a Sydney first grade match between Central Cumberland and Waverley. Waverley opening bowler, Dennis Hourn, is standing by the stumps and he’s worried. Not about the result, Waverley have got that wrapped up, only one more wicket to take. Problem is, for Dennis at least, is that he’s taken the other nine, and wants the last one, to become only the second Waverley bowler to take all ten in a first grade match. The first, New South Wales and Leicestershire all-rounder Vic Jackson, did it way back in the 1937–38 season, against Randwick. In fact, only three bowlers have ever taken all ten in Sydney first grade, so that’s some exalted company Dennis is after joining.
Dennis almost did it the previous over, too. Cumberland batter Bob Cadden nicked off to the keeper. No ball! Dennis was frustrated, yes, but not disillusioned. Cumberland’s last pair only had to survive six balls and then he’d get his tenth. He chatted to the left arm leggie who was bowling at the other end. ‘Keep it easy mate, no flippers or wrong ‘uns.”
For the first few balls, everything goes to plan. Length ball, patted back, relax, repeat. But then halfway through the over, the bowler sends down a full toss, Bob Cadden’s eyes light up and he smashes it, to Dennis’s horror, straight at Bob ‘buckets’ Rheinberger in the covers. Dennis has never seen Rheinberger drop a catch, and he doesn’t drop this one. As the players trudge off, Dennis looks to the heavens and then glances over at the bowler who’s messed up his carefully orchestrated plan – one David William Hourn, his twin brother.
Dennis and David Hourn. Legends of Waverley Cricket Club and Sydney grade cricket. The only brothers to twice take all ten wickets between them in a Sydney grade match – they did it again in 1981–82 against Sydney Cricket Club, five wickets each.
The twins were ever-present for Waverley during the late 60s and 70s, except when David was playing for New South Wales. Both had dodgy eyesight and gammy knees. Dennis’s knees gave out first and he was pretty much finished by the mid-80s. David carried on until he was 40 but couldn’t play every year because of his chronic knee problems. Both twins have since had those joints replaced.
Dennis thinks it was David’s knees, and poor eyesight (both twins wore thick glasses until they started using contacts in their early 20s) that stopped him getting picked for Australia. Unfortunately, Ian Chappell, Australian captain at the time, thought that David and Jim Higgs, the Victorian leg spinner, were not proper cricketers because they couldn’t bat or field, only bowl. Higgs got a few games for Australia. David was pretty ordinary in the field, he admits that, but he does reckon he could bat better than Jim Higgs.
After the twins stopped playing, both brothers took to coaching and managing the kids’ teams at Waverley. Now in their mid-70s, they still visit the club, renamed Eastern Suburbs since a merger with another local club.
Backyard cricket
In the late 50s and early 60s, the twins, their two older brothers and many other local kids were the menace of Midelton Avenue. Their all-day Test matches, usually between Australia and the West Indies, were played on the road outside their house. This meant a few broken windows and balls arriving unexpectedly in neighbours’ back gardens. But it was also the beginning of an obsessive love for cricket – not just batting and bowling, but also for the stories that unfold within the game, and the characters and greats who’ve played it.
Dennis Hourn (he goes first as he’s older by half an hour: “There were four Hourn boys, Chris, Lindsay, David and me. We were the MCC – Midelton Cricket Club. When the stumps went out – well a garbage bin – kids would come in from all over the area to play with us. We never missed a day. Midelton Avenue was a Mecca for kids. The SCG of North Bondi.”
David chimes in: “There were no cars in the street, so we could play as long as we wanted – in the summer until it was dark. These days, you can’t see the street, there are so many cars. We used a wet tennis ball to make the bounce more like a cricket ball, which did a lot of damage to the neighbours’ houses. Pretty fun times for us, not so much for the elderly neighbours.”
Dennis again: “The street looked huge, now it looks like a lane. We placed a bucket of water at the end of the bowler’s run, for the tennis ball. I always wanted to be the quickies. Wes Hall, was my hero, but I also would be Frank Worrell, Garfield Sobers, all the outstanding players, obviously. Dave would be Cammie Smith, Sonny Ramadhin, Gerry Alexander. We idolised the West Indians, had all their pictures and postcards. I met Wes Hall in 1963 at Waverley Oval at a coaching clinic. I was in awe of him. We’d all listened on the radio to the 1960–61 tied Test between Australia and the West Indies.”
David: “The wet tennis ball was legendary. We had a side passage by our house that was painted with oil paint and the ball absolutely flew off it and really hurt if it hit you. As for gripping it for leggies, I did it by rubbing my hand on the grass with a bit of dirt and it seemed to work. However, it hardly spun, so I turned myself from Alf Valentine to Garfield Sobers bowling left-arm medium quick. Dennis reckons I’m the worst quickie he’s ever seen!”
Dennis: “I had a little dabble trying to bowl leg spin and David tried to coach me. Couldn’t work it out, too difficult.”
David: “We’d sometimes go up to the Reserve Park in Dover Heights to play. The old man would take us up there in the morning and pick us up when it got dark. We’ve still got the score books somewhere.”
And finally Dennis: “We’d write up the scores and I’d make a report out at the end of the game and send it to our dad. We drove the old man mental playing out the back and in the park so it was a natural gravitation to take us up to the local club.”
Waverley and Sydney grade cricket
The twins joined Waverley Cricket Club in 1958, aged nine, and in 1962 enrolled in Waverley College. Both excelled at school cricket – David was in the first XI for four years, Dennis for two, as opening bowler and leading batter. But when Dennis, aged 16, turned out for his first senior match, Waverley 5ths vs Bankstown, there was a nasty surprise waiting for him: an early encounter with two bowlers who’d go on to terrorise Sydney grade cricket over the subsequent decade.
Dennis: “There was this lad, about 15, hair down to his arse, name of Len Durtanovich – better known as Len Pascoe. First over I face from Lenny, he bowls me seven bouncers. At the other end, guess who’s bowling? Jeff Thomson. At school I’d been playing against pie throwers and blokes who couldn’t hit it off the square. Right then, I realised the gig of opening the batting was up for me. I worked my way down the order to No.10, and Dave was No.11.”
David: “First time we saw Thommo in the first grade was 1970–71. Bankstown wicket-keeper, Keith Andrew took his place 30 yards back, and we chuckled to ourselves, but not for long. The first one from Thommo, the keeper took shoulder high, and the same every second ball after that. It was pretty scary, just watching from the stands. And Lenny Pascoe was on the other end. I didn’t have to face them that day but a few years later, I went out to face Lenny, batting at No.11. The batsman before me had just been carried off on a stretcher, his jaw broken and blood pouring out of his mouth. Lenny is running into bowl and Thommo is at backward square leg, saying ‘Hourny, watch the bouncer mate, watch the bouncer!’ Lenny’s stock ball was a bouncer, but when I was in, he was more concerned with knocking the stumps over. Thommo never bowled me a bouncer in grade or Sheffield Shield cricket, he was good like that – I didn’t have the best eyesight, didn’t see the ball.”
Dennis: “Back then the state and Test players turned out for their clubs when they could. If you knew you were playing a Test player the next day you didn’t go out on a Friday night. On the field you raised your game, took it as a challenge. Doesn’t mean those guys didn’t come out on top – they usually did. One game at Kings Oval, our captain decided that Doug Walters was vulnerable against the short ball and told me to bounce him. We got Doug out, caught at mid-wicket from a mistimed pull shot, but by then he’d scored 150!”
David: “Competition was fierce, a very high standard – not a lot of difference in standard to Sheffield Shield cricket. I was as fired up playing first grade cricket as I was playing for New South Wales.”
Dennis: “I got Brian Booth out once, and Jimmy Burke. I nearly got Bob Simpson too, had him plumb lbw, but Simmo was not having any of it. He gives the umpire the death stare and then calmly asks for his guard. ‘Centre please’. The umpire doesn’t dare give Simmo out, and he goes on to get 170-odd. Something similar happened when Geoff Boycott was playing for us in 1976–77. He hit the cover off a ball from left-arm spinner, Mark Ray, who went on to play for Tasmania. Everyone on the ground heard it, the next batsman in was on his way to the wicket. But Boycs just turns around with a look of astonishment, as if to say ‘You’re not going to give me out?’ What did WG Grace say ‘They’ve come here to watch me bat, not you umpire.’ I’m sure had the bails come off, Boycs would have put them back on and carried on as if nothing had happened!”
The unlucky bowler that day, Ray adds: “As we appealed, I turned to the umpire, and he was looking over at square leg where David ‘Cracka’ Hourn and his teammates were watching in the old pavilion. I figured I had no chance, and so it was. Boycs stood his ground, and we were furious, but said nothing – well, maybe our keeper had a word. Boycs was a hundred and something not out at the end of the first day. The most amazing thing was towards the end when Cracka came out to bat at a well-deserved No.11 (he was clinically half-blind!), Boycs took a single off the first ball of the last over and left Cracka to face a young and angry Geoff Lawson. We’d never seen anything as ‘professional’ as that!
“Next morning, Sunday, ‘Cracka’ and I were playing for an East Sydney team in a four-team series of one-dayers, which were like state trials. I walked into the dressing-room and said G’day to four or five blokes when Cracka said: ‘Jeez, tough luck yesterday, Mark. We heard the nick in the grandstand.’ I mumbled something rude and laughed. A big one that got away.”
Boycs and Greigy
Geoff Boycott played for Waverley during the 1976–77 southern summer. The previous year, Tony Greig had captained the club to the first-grade championship. Both these cricketing icons had a lasting effect on the twins.
Dennis: “In 128 years of Sydney Premier first grade cricket only two players have scored more than 1,000 runs and averaged over 150 in the same season. The first was Victor Trumper in 1897–98 for Paddington, and the other was Waverley’s Geoffrey Boycott – 1,160 runs at an average of 165.71.
Dennis: “In Boycs’ first four games he had to face some serious pace. First up was David ‘Fox’ Colley, who’d played a few times for Australia. Second game he’s up against state pacemen Steve Bernard and Mark Clews. Third game he plays against Lenny Pascoe, who nearly bloody killed him. Fourth game, it’s a young Henry (Geoff) Lawson on a bouncy wicket. To his credit, Boycs met the challenge and scored a mountain of runs.”
David: “I bowled at Boycs in the nets for hours. He treated every net session like a Test match. I’d be bowling for three hours, and I’d say ‘Boycs, I’m buggered mate’ and he’d say: ‘Are you sure? Can you keep going?’ A guy absolutely dedicated to his craft. Had a wry sense of humour and an incredible memory for people and stats. He was always very friendly to us.”
In a letter to Dennis Boycott wrote in 2021, he said: “One of the best periods of my career and life playing for Waverley. It boosted my confidence, I felt very comfortable amongst everyone at the club as you all made me so welcome. It gave me the confidence to go back to Test match cricket.”
Dennis: Greigy put in one of the greatest all-round performances in grade cricket history in 1975–76 taking 77 wickets at 12 and scoring 544 runs at 32. He couldn’t return the following year because the MCC (Marylebone not Middleton!) had ordered all the England players to rest before the India tour.”
David: “Greigy? Unbelievable human being. He set attacking fields for me and got me to bowl to them, whereas normally I’d have guys in the outfield, paranoid that I’d go for runs. Greigy would put fielders at short leg, leg slip, and he’d field one inch from the bat at silly point, and I’d say to Greigy ‘You’re gonna get killed mate’. He’d say: ‘You just bowl, I’ll stand here’. We often had big crowds for first grade games – 400 to 500 in the late 60s and early 70s. When Greigy played we’d get over 1000.”
John Boyd, a Waverley teammate, adds: “One game was dragging out to a draw and the light was fading. David was fielding at fine leg, and Greigy, who was bowling, arranged with the batsmen that on the third ball of the over that he would go through the motions, but not release the ball, the batsmen was to play an imaginary hook shot. As this played out, Greigy, always the joker, yelled in David’s direction ‘Catch it Cracka’. David was seen looking to the heavens running around looking for the ball at which point Greigy held the ball aloft as everyone fell about in laughter.”
Dennis: “As a bloke, Greigy was terrific company, he loved the company of cricketers. I remember an altercation between him and Balmain captain, John Pearson. Towards the end of the game, heading for a draw, Balmain were batting and Greigy wanted to call the game off early. ‘Pearso’ was on 75 and wanted his hundred. Greigy wasn’t impressed and started bowling donkey drops and moon balls, with a few choice words for Pearso thrown in for good measure. Everyone had a bowl, except the bowlers, even the wicket-keeper. Pearso got his hundred, agreed to stop the game, and then, unimpressed by Greigy’s antics, stormed into our dressing-room to have it out with Tony. We were all stunned as Tony copped a spray for a good five minutes without saying a word. After Pearso left the room, Greigy turned to the team with a massive grin on his face and said: ‘What was that all about?’ It took a lot to ruffle Tony Greig.”
New South Wales and Australia
David Hourn played his first game for New South Wales in 1970–71. Over the next ten seasons he played 44 times for the Blues, taking 164 wickets and it would have been more if he’d not missed so many games with his injured knee.
Dennis had a few seasons in a row in the early to mid-70s where he got a lot of first grade wickets. But New South Wales had a lot of good fast bowlers back then – Pascoe, Colley, Clews, Bernard, Gary Gilmour. Jeff Thomson was around until 1974, and Geoff Lawson after 1977.
David: “I was out of cricket for nearly two years after a disastrous knee operation when I was 25. I played in England for a season, had what I thought was a minor knee operation, turned out it wasn’t!”
David: “When I was 25, Peter Philpott [former Test leg spinner and then NSW coach] showed me this new delivery in a winter training session. Peter called it the back spinner. It’s since been called ‘the zooter’. When I first bowled it in practice, it landed in the next net. It took me 18 months to get it right, but once I did, it got me a hell of a lot of wickets. Before that I bowled a wrong ‘un and a leg break, pretty accurate, but that’s all. First time I bowled the zooter in a Shield game I got Alvin Kallicharran out. Twice.
“It’s like a flipper – goes out low and keeps low and dead straight. It’s designed to get the batsman playing back, and it floats up fuller than they expect. It’s ideal against left-handers, as it goes straight on. There are different ways of bowling it. Shane Warne bowled a bit of a slider, Adil Rashid bowls one out of the front of his hand. With the zooter, you bring it out of the bottom of your hand, with your wrist pointing towards mid-on, not down towards the batsman. That makes it harder to read.”
Dennis: “When David tells me how to bowl the zooter, my eyes glaze over, and I love cricket. Bloody good ball though.”
David: “I roomed with Allan Border for New South Wales, during his first state season. You could see straight away that AB was something special – tough. His first hundred, 140 against Western Australia, was on a bouncy deck at the WACA against Sam Gannon, Terry Alderman, Wayne Clark – all pretty quick on that sort of deck. Our first three blokes came back in with broken arms, but AB didn’t look like getting out. Our manager said he’d give AB a dollar for every run he scored over 100. We had a sparse meal allowance back then, and not much money to play, so we’d eat at McDonald’s each night and keep our dinner money.”
John Boyd again: “When David was playing for NSW, McDonald’s sponsored the team, and the state players were given complimentary meal vouchers. David would bring them along to our Saturday grade games and hand them to us young blokes to use during the lunch break. He has always been a generous character.”
When it came to spinners for the national team in the mid to late 70s if Ashley Mallett wasn’t playing, Australian selectors tended to go for bowlers who could bat a bit – Bruce Yardley, Peter Sleep, Ray Bright, Kerry O’Keeffe, Tony Mann. David felt he was close to Australia selection at times, but he never got the call.
Dennis: “It’s hard to explain to the current crop of players just what an incredible spin bowler Dave was. He had the complete wrist spin bowler’s repertoire – leg break, wrong ‘un, top spinner, flipper, zooter, and when the conditions demanded, he bowled a mean left-arm finger spin.”
David: “My eyesight was all over the place, and my catching was pretty ordinary. All the other spinners were averaging around 20 with the bat in first-class cricket. The Australian team needed the spinner to bat, as the fast bowlers were Thommo, Lenny, Dennis Lillee, Max Walker, Rodney Hogg and Alan Hurst and you couldn’t afford to have any of them batting at eight.”
Dennis: “Boycott couldn’t pick Dave, he played him off the pitch. Nor could a young Sachin Tendulkar, who faced Dave in an Old Collegians tour match in Mumbai in 1993. 20 years earlier, on a club tour to West Indies, Dave got eight wickets in one game, including a young Viv Richards, who didn’t pick Dave’s wrong ‘un and got a leading edge to mid-off. Back home, the local press suggested Dave should have been added to Ian Chappell’s Australian Test team who were also playing in the Caribbean at the time.”
David: “When Mallett, O’Keefe and Bright went to World Series Cricket, I thought I might get a game.”
Dennis: “Allan Border told me that David was the unluckiest player who didn’t get to play for Australia. ‘Your brother should have played 60 Tests,’ he told me. And Geoff Lawson reckons David would have taken 300 Test wickets if he’d have had decent knees. Boycott rates David as one of the best spinners he’s seen.”
In that letter, Boycott continued: “I sometimes think what your brother may have achieved if that damn knee of his had been stronger, as I didn’t get to see David bowl with a good knee. Even in the few matches he played with a gammy knee I felt that he had something that could have been special. We will never know where his talent might have taken him.”
Former Essex batsman Paul Prichard, who played for Waverley in the 1990s, adds: “Even at the back end of David’s career, to see his skills close-up was a pleasure. He returned to first grade action, aged 41, and took a lot of wickets. In today’s short form cricket, David’s left arm ‘wristies’ would be a rich commodity.”
Love of cricket
After the twins finished playing, Waverley continued to be a big part of their lives, They are life members at the club and both received Australia Day awards from Waverley Council in 2001 for their services to cricket, especially junior coaching.
Former Waverley teammate Bob Wilsonn says: “Both twins were, and still are, regulars in Waverley’s famous Back Room, the players’ lounge underneath the grandstand at Waverley Oval. Back in the 70s, it was the only cricket club in Sydney that served cold tap beer. When Tony Greig joined the club, Kerry Packer donated a temperature checker for the keg beer. There were so many long Saturday nights – players from Waverley and the opposition clubs loved it. Back then the monthly committee meetings were quite long! The Hourns did everything – committee, coaching, management, they’d always be around the place, helping people out in the nets. Dennis looks after the archives. He’s got a great memory for past cricket. If you want to know anything about the club, you ring up Dennis Hourn. They love the club and the club loves them. Neither would have dreamed of playing for another club.”
Boyd adds: “After winning the premiership, Dennis and another teammate left the backroom in their whites and were still in their whites when they came home on Tuesday morning! Another time, Dennis was so concerned that if he went home after a night on the drink, he would sleep in and miss the start of play. He was found asleep under the covers when the groundsman arrived to prepare the pitch!”
Dennis: “My wife Julie ran the kiosk at Waverley Oval for 20 years. She wouldn’t dream of asking for money, it just didn’t enter her mind. When Kerry Packer came down to watch the cricket, she’d always make him a cup of tea. Kerry lived nearby, a two-minute chauffeur ride from the ground!”
David: “Dennis was unbelievable, he looked after all the juniors for nothing, not paid a red cent. He’d be up at eight o’clock, umpiring the junior kids because no one else would do it. Even if he had had a late night, he’d still get up.”
The last word goes to Dennis: “Nearly all my friends are associated with cricket. You just wouldn’t think about joining another club. I still meet some of the kids I coached now, as adults, and they come up to you and shake your hand. That makes you feel good. Hello Mr Hourn. Call me Dennis! Dave was always ‘Cracka’. In a Shield game, someone in the crowd yelled out: ‘Hey Hournie, harden up Cracker!’ The nickname somehow stuck. Everyone but me calls Dave ‘Cracka.’ I don’t have a nickname. I am usually just referred to as Cracka’s brother!”
The Hourns – unassuming to the end.
