Cricket news: Brendan ‘Bushy’ McArdle, the legend of local cricket scene worldwide

The third Test match between England and Australia.

Garry Davidson, the president of Dandenong Cricket Club, was at the Ashes Test and he remembers it for two things, one monumental, the other incidental.

The first, obviously, was the Ben Stokes century that lifted England to an improbable victory.

“An unbelievable innings,’’ Davidson says. “You sit there watching it going, ‘It’s gotta end any moment, they can’t win this, he can’t keep doing this’. And he’s reversing, he’s ramping. It was just incredible.’’

The second occurred in the company of Davidson’s friend and Dandenong committee member Brendan ‘Bushy’ McArdle.

On the tense fourth day, McArdle, his son Rishton and Davidson decided to stretch their legs and do a lap of the ground.

It took longer than they expected.

As they walked, Brendan McArdle kept encountering people he knew in cricket, either in Melbourne, where he played at first-class level and is a staple of the District/Premier club scene, or the UK, where he served as a professional player in the Lancashire and Bolton leagues and later set up many young Englishmen for playing stints in Australia.

“If there was one person say, ‘Hey, Bushy, how are you?’, there would have been 15,’’ Davidson says with a laugh.

“It got to the point where Rishton said, ‘Dad, seriously, are we a chance to keep walking without anyone saying hello to you?’ Twenty metres later another person comes up to us. And Bushy knew them all … ‘Oh, I sent that kid to Mt Waverley, a good little keeper-bat’ or ‘I sent him to Middle Park, good kid’. It took us forever to walk around the ground!’’

At stumps on day one of the Test, McArdle and Davidson were making their way out of Headingley when they heard a distinctive voice say McArdle’s name.

They stopped. It was West Indies great Michael Holding, who in the early 1980s had replaced McArdle as the pro at Rishton in the Lancashire league.

McArdle enjoyed his season at Rishton so much that he named his son after the club.

He and Holding chatted for 10 minutes. As they did, a thought came to Davidson: Is there anyone in cricket “Bushy’’ doesn’t know?

In that same Test match, Australian fast bowler James Pattinson, a Dandenong product, was walking to third man when he saw McArdle in the crowd, waiting to take his seat.

“Hey Bushy, how ya going?’’ Pattinson shouted from the field.

“He’s amazing, ‘Bushy’. He seems to know everyone in cricket. Just lives and breathes it,’’ Davidson says.

*****

Two weeks ago Wasim Akram launched his book at South Yarra Cricket Club, the long-time cricket home of distinguished writer Gideon Haigh, with whom the great Pakistan fast bowler collaborated on “Sultan’’.

The Yarras social club was packed.

Brendan McArdle was there, and there was no place he would rather have been.

He had his great mate Doug Ackerly, the broadcaster and author, at his side, former Lancashire player Nick Speak soon joined them, they had a drink in hand and all the talk in the room was about cricket.

Haigh asked questions. Akram answered them. And McArdle relished the discussion, the more so when Akram brought up how he had bounced Viv Richards.

McArdle loves Richards, believing he batted the way every cricketer wanted to bat, boldly and brutally but also beautifully.

Of course, he knows Richards, through Ian Botham, who played District cricket in Melbourne in the late 1970s and developed a friendship with McArdle that endures to this day.

As for Akram, McArdle met him in 1992, having a sit-down in the committee room at Old Trafford in the hope of bringing him to Dandenong for a season.

Leg-spinner Peter Hatzoglou also made it to the book launch.

McArdle had not met him and went over to introduce himself with the words, “You won’t know who I am but …’’

Hatzoglou quickly worked it out.

“You’re Brendan McArdle,’’ he said.

And they chatted about cricketers and clubs for 15 minutes. Ackerly says McArdle’s love for the game and the people involved in it is “unparalleled’’.

*****

The day after Akram swung by the Yarras, Brendan McArdle was at Shepley Oval, Dandenong, watching Dandy take on Northcote in Victorian Premier Cricket.

He was there to support Dandenong, but also to hand over the Brendan McArdle Shield to the winning team.

McArdle is an official Dandenong legend: his ties to the club go back more than 30 years, when it was known as Waverley.

But he made his start and his name in cricket at Northcote, where he began as a 13-year-old schoolboy, playing on matting pitches in the fifths on Saturday mornings and on turf in the fourths on Saturday afternoons.

Cricket for his school, St Kevin’s College, came with a scholarship a bit later.

When McArdle made his First XI debut for Northcote in 1970-71, legendary Bill Lawry was his captain. It was against Prahran. McArdle got a duck.

He came through at the Westgarth St ground with an exceptional group of young players, including future Test men Rodney Hogg and Gary Cosier, Gary Living and Jimmy Christou.

Around them were experienced hands like Lawry, Richie Robinson and John Wildsmith.

The Dragons won the premiership in 1973-74.

“It was a good place for a young bloke to go,’’ McArdle says.

“Our coach (Daryl Foster) picked the boys young. I was later than the others. I was 18. They were 15, 16. Daryl came across from Essendon as our captain-coach and he gave the promising young players a go. It was a great environment in which to learn. All you had was the Tuesday and Thursday training nights. The thing crucial thing was what you did on a Saturday, how we went in the seconds or how we went in the firsts. A few of the senior players were really good to me.

“I played under Bill about four times. He was hard. I thought he was hard on Hoggy. Hoggy was a great bowler but Bill was harsh on him and Gary Living went ahead first.’’

Hogg and McArdle met when they were 13 or 14.

They became great mates and were to become first-class cricket opponents.

Rarely an extended conversation with McArdle passes without him bringing up “Hoggy’’, who crossed to South Australia to make his Sheffield Shield debut in 1975-76.

McArdle took his Shield bow in 1976-77, against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval, and he performed well, hitting 78 from No. 8 and opening the bowling with Ian Callen in the second innings and claiming 3-40 off nine overs.

He considered himself a batting all-rounder. But he says he got into the Victorian team as a bowler who batted.

“I batted at No. 3 at Northcote and opened the bowling for about seven years,’’ he says.

“The hard thing for me was trying to cope with the expectation of my bowling, I suppose.

“I was very medium and could swing it a bit. Yeah, I was definitely a better batsman than bowler but ironically I got the opportunity in the state side as a bowler.’’

Across three seasons he played 11 matches for Victoria.

“The thing that got me in wasn’t good enough to keep me in,’’ McArdle says.

“But it was about right. No complaints. I would have loved to have played a bit more, of course.

“Trevor Laughlin was the all-rounder in the side and he was a better player. His temperament at that level was better. He had more belief. It’s a game where you have to believe in yourself. I lacked a bit of belief. I felt much more at home in District cricket.’’

In his last season at Shield level, 1978-79, he made 108 runs at 21.60 and took three wickets at 52.33.

Hogg talked him into moving to South Australia and trying to break into its Shield team, but he didn’t play well enough at club level and returned to Melbourne – and Northcote – 12 months later.

Later, Hogg also persuaded him to transfer to Carlton as captain-coach in 1985-86 and to Waverley (later to become Waverley-Dandenong and then Dandenong) as a senior player in 1987-88.

He took over the coaching role from Hogg at the Panthers at a time when a bunch of talented young players was emerging quickly: Ian Harvey, Robbie Bartlett, Shaun Prescott, Josh Marquet, Michael Hansen, David McLeod, Paul Brown, Scotty Duane, Shaun Richardson and Michael De Mattia.

Another group that included Matthew Lawrence came a couple of seasons later.

It reminded McArdle of his early days at Northcote.

Harvey went on to represent Australia. Marquet, Bartlett and Prescott played Shield cricket. Hansen was once 12th man for the Vics.

Richardson is now a director of Cricket Victoria.

“I love ‘Bushy’,’’ he says. “Just learned so much as a young player under his leadership – why it’s important to respect the game, what it means to be a great clubman and the friendships cricket can create,’’ he says.

Richardson, Bartlett and Duane are part of the group that catches up with McArdle every year at the Boxing Day Test match, their meeting point one of the bars in the members’ stand.

It’s fair to say their throats are well lubricated by the end of the first session.

Dandy made two semi-finals under the captaincy and coaching of McArdle. He believes they should have done better.

“It’s a regret I didn’t win a flag with them,’’ he says.

“We possibly underachieved a bit there. It happens. But we had an environment that was good for development. It was maybe too much fun, not enough answerability.’’

McArdle played First XI District cricket for almost three decades: his last appearance was in 1998-99 and took his tally of matches to 380, behind only John “Barrel’’ Scholes (396).

There were 9281 runs at 28.55, with seven centuries and 60 half-centuries, and 271 wickets at 23.43.

He was almost 51 when he captained Dandy’s Second XI, banging out a century at Footscray filled with meaty cuts.

And, of course, there was England for McArdle.

Doug Ackerly calls him “the de facto king of Lancashire’’.

*****

Who would name their son after a cricket club?

“Some foolish bloke,’’ Brendan McArdle says with a smile.

Rishton, in the Lancashire league, had a “massive influence’’ on his life. Frank Tyson was coaching Victoria at the time and was McArdle’s connection with the club. Taking a year off school teaching, he joined it in 1980 at the age of 28 and played for one season before handing over to Holding.

He made runs and he took wickets.

“It had a great impact on me and my wife at the time. We just loved it. The hospitality was great. And we thought when the kids came along in ’84 that it was not a bad idea (to name their son Rishton),’’ he says.

“Cricket-wise, I had my best season there, 1000 runs and 70 wickets. We came about third or fourth. But Rishton were a high-ambition club and fourth to them wasn’t enough. So they got the best bowler they could. That was Michael Holding. And they still came fourth!’’

He could not complain about being replaced: “I was fortunate to be at Rishton, because I was only a fringe state player, and their pros were generally pretty famous players.’’

McArdle had five seasons in the Lancashire league, from Rishton crossing to Church (where an image of him is etched in glass in the social club), then switched to the Bolton league.

He returned to Lancashire to replace Ravi Ratnayeke at Todmorden for half a season.

It was testing cricket and, given a team would struggle to win without a substantial performance from its pro, there was always pressure to do well, he says.

He came up against overseas players such as Holding, Andy Roberts, Kapil Dev, Mudassar Nazar, Mohsin Khan and Arun Lal.

McArdle regarded being in such esteemed company as compensation for not playing as much state cricket as he had hoped.

He appreciated not only the standard of the Lancashire league, but its rich history (after his stint in 1980, Rishton’s list of overseas players included Viv Richards, Mohammad Azharuddin, Allan Donald, Greg Blewett and Jason Gillespie).

With the IPL and the congested international calendar, the calibre of professional players can never be what it was, he says.

In the years since his league engagements, McArdle has arranged for many young Australian and English cricketers to cross the countries for cricketing experience.

He sent Shane Warne, Brad Hodge, Simon O’Donnell and Paul Reiffel to England. And with the help of Darren Pattinson he brought Alex Hales to Australia.

*****

“I reckon I’ve been well rewarded by cricket, in terms of the fun and the connections I’ve got out of it,’’ Brendan McArdle says.

“The game’s been more than good to me, beyond what I could have expected. Because a player with 11 Shield games doesn’t normally get the opportunities to do the things I did, a long run in Premier Cricket, the English stuff, the Cricket Victoria role (he advised the state selectors for 10 years).’’

There were also regular columns in The Age and the occasional feature for the Springvale Times, writing memorably for the former about a young Ian Harvey hitting a century in league cricket in England and for the latter about the rise to Test ranks of Dandenong boys Peter Siddle and James Pattinson.

There was even a movie cameo too, as Jack Thompson’s double in The Club.

McArdle had gone to Victoria Park to get a ticket to watch Collingwood the next day.

“I walked into the social club and these people from the movie set were there and said, ‘Hey, that dude looks like Jack’. They said to me, ‘Do you play footy?’’’ he recalls.

“I said I used to play a bit. So they roped me in as Jack Thompson’s stuntman. I got $30 for it! I had to kick a goal at the grandstand end. It took me 15 takes, because I was too nervous – Rene Kink, Ronnie Wearmouth, Tom Hafey were there – and I couldn’t kick straight.

“They asked me if I had any mates because they needed faces for the crowd, so I got in ‘Bocca’ (Northcote teammate Greg Boxall) and he was there every day. He was running around the streets with Rene Kink!’’

Boxall got more exposure than his mate, whose back was to the camera as he wonkily put boot to ball.

*****

A few years ago Brendan McArdle was made an official legend of the cricket-focused charity Lord’s Taverners Victoria.

Former Dandenong president Ross Hepburn, now the chairman of Cricket Victoria, was called on to speak about a man who has served his club as player, coach, captain, chairman of selectors, committee member and delegate to CV.

Hepburn told the guests he had searched for one word to describe McArdle in cricketing terms.

He settled on “aficionado’’.

“No one is more universally known, loved and recognised in the Premier Cricket world than Brendan,’’ Hepburn said.

“His life has revolved around cricket, thriving on mentoring young cricketers, sharing cricket knowledge, reliving past glories, connecting cricketers and clubs, debating cricket strategies and regaling listeners with stories.’’

Garry Davidson saw every bit of it at Headingley during the 2019 Ashes tour.