DARRYL MacDonald says he was nothing more than "medium pace rat-power", but with 1400-plus career wickets, no one is as distinguished in Daylesford and District cricket.
Included was an extraordinary 100 wickets in all matches in 1971-72.
"I loved cricket and everything that went with it," said MacDonald, who was still donning the whites, albeit as a back-up player, aged 62, during Bendigo Country Week last summer.
A sheep farmer from Porcupine Ridge, MacDonald's love affair with cricket stretched into administration, where his service has been Bradman-like.
Farm life didn't always allow him to practice on a Tuesday and Thursday, so he began a habit of practising his run-up while herding the sheep, using stones as balls and thistles, exactly 22 paces away, as his target.
Come Saturdays, his cutters would hum at batsmen, as he ripped his fingers down one side of the ball.
Twice in a three-week period during his stellar season of 1971-72, he took nine wickets in an innings. Once he grabbed 17 wickets in a game.
"We'd play mainly on malthoid wickets, with an odd matting game thrown in too," MacDonald said.
"I could make it zip a bit off those tracks. It was harder though on the carpet. I was older then and the ball would sit up more, making it easier for the batsmen."
A legend at Ballarat and Bendigo country weeks, where he first appeared as a 15-year-old, MacDonald's record of 1400 career wickets includes a rare double hat-trick at club level against Trentham in 1975.
He's particularly proud of playing in three Ballarat A Grade country week premierships with Daylesford in the early 1980s, as well as his three club flags: two with Daylesford and one with Colts, a club he helped start in the mid 1970s.
"It took us six years before we won one there," he said.
"One of the original boys we worked with, Jim Frith, went on to play in the firsts at South Melbourne. It's always great to see the boys progress."
A Daylesford & District CA life member since 1981, MacDonald estimates he played in more than 150 Association games, taking 400 wickets and making 1000 runs.
He says batting wasn't his "go", but he does have one career century: 122 against Musk to his credit. His best-ever bowling figures were nine for 26 during one Bendigo carnival.
He particularly respected teammates such as Tony Hunt, an ever-talkative wicketkeeper, and Wayne Mobbs and Trevor Pickering. He says Henry Gunstone was always an outstanding opponent: "I never did any good against him, but we did beat his mob once," he said.
Asked to detail the ball of his life, he says it came in a B grade Grand Final one year at Eastern Oval, Ballarat, when one of his fast off-breaks pitched well outside the batsman Les Payne's off stump before running along the ground and hitting his leg stump.
"It bent a bit, that one," said the ever-modest MacDonald, whose six wickets for the innings swung yet another match.
- Ken Piesse's latest book, On Ya Richie, a celebration of Richie Benaud's first 80 years is available at newsagents and www.cricketbooks.com.au
