Can Anyone Hear Me? by Peter Baxter

the bloke who bats for five days and doesn’t score a run?’ He obviously was not aware that outside Tests Chris Tavaré had been hitting sixes.
    The Sydney Cricket Ground Trust used to operate a policy, not unlike that of the MCC at Lord’s, by which they did not acceptthe Australian Cricket Board’s passes for the media. For the fifth Test at the start of 1983, I had put in my requests well in advance for what was a rather augmented commentary team. Brian Johnston had just arrived, as had Trevor Bailey and I had been using Mike Denness as well.
Friday 31 December 1982
    The man behind the desk was not impressed as I tried to pick up my passes. ‘You should have one for Trevor Bailey,’ I tried.
    He looked blank.
    â€˜The great old England all-rounder?’ I suggested, feeling that he was of a vintage to remember.
    Nothing.
    â€˜Mike Denness?’ I said. ‘England captain here eight years ago? We lost,’ I added, thinking that might help.
    Still nothing.
    I was desperate. ‘Brian Johnston,’ I offered. ‘Music hall entertainer.’
    The Sun came out. ‘Aw, she’ll be right,’ he said and all the passes I had ordered were forthcoming.
    It was a good day for Johnners, as my diary entry from earlier that same day recalls.
Friday 31 December 1982
    The best thing to wake up to on the last day of 1982 was the news that BJ had received an OBE in the New Year’s Honours.He had arrived in Sydney two days before, so I was able to ring my congratulations.
    The next morning, my phone rang. ‘The thing to do on New Year’s Day is to go to Bondi Beach!’ declared the unmistakable voice of Johnners. And he was round within the hour, piloting a borrowed Mini and sporting a remarkable Hawaiian shirt.
    Two days later, the second day of the Sydney Test, Brian had something more to celebrate. A phone call via our studio in London told me that he had just become a grandfather for the first time. His daughter, Clare, had given birth to Nicholas. Champagne was immediately sent for.
    This first tour of Australia was the first time we had mounted our own separate commentary there. As a result there was a certain amount of bemusement from local ABC people and from the ground authorities themselves.
    In Brisbane, the secretary of the Queensland Cricket Association said he had heard nothing of us coming at all. It was a combination of help from ABC Television and a photograph I remembered of CMJ and Blowers reporting during an Australia v West Indies match a few years before that helped me identify a position on camera scaffolding above the press box. It was a slightly ramshackle set-up, but I became rather fond of it over several tours.
    In those days the Gabba in Brisbane was a bit of a hotch-potch, with a dog track running round the ground, which players had to cross on a little bridge to take the field. But it did have character. There was a grassy hill below the old scoreboard, beyond which could be seen the bright orange flowers of the poinciana trees around the practice area.Christopher Martin-Jenkins, arriving at the Gabba one Test match morning, thought he had better check that he had got the identification of the trees correct.
    â€˜Are they poincianas?’ he asked the taxi driver.
    He apparently had not picked an expert on botany. ‘They’re buggered-if-I-know trees,’ was the answer.
    When they started the redevelopment of the Gabba, driven not by cricket, but by the expansion of Australian Football League (AFL) – never really a Queensland game originally – we found ourselves in a sealed-in box at the top of a towering stand. From there in 1998, Jeff Thomson said that he could see the storm that eventually saved England in that Test coming ‘over Boggo Road Gaol’. Now the skyline is all but invisible, with the towering stands forming a complete circle. The old scoreboard that told you everything – once you could work