Australian cricket is this week mourning Bob Simpson, the on-field tactician and later off-field mentor whose influence stretched across four decades. Simpson died in Sydney on Thursday, aged 89.
The Sydney-born right-hander played 62 Tests between 1957 and 1978, scoring 4,869 runs at 46.81, taking 71 wickets with serviceable leg-spin, and, just as memorably, patrolling the slips with rare certainty. He debuted for New South Wales at 16 and ended up with 21,029 first-class runs and 349 wickets – hefty numbers, even by the longer standards of the era.
Retirement first beckoned in 1968 after 50 Tests, 29 of them as captain. Yet Australian cricket’s World Series schism of 1977 left selectors scrambling, and a 41-year-old Simpson answered the SOS. He led Australia in ten Tests that season – five at home to India, five in the Caribbean – and, typically, did not let the job diminish him.
All ten of his Test hundreds came while skipper, starting with the marathon 311 at Old Trafford in 1964. As captain he averaged 54.07; beforehand, 33.67. Along the way he and Bill Lawry banked 382 for the first wicket against West Indies in Bridgetown, still Australia’s record opening stand.
When the on-field days finally did end, the board coaxed him back once more, this time as the country’s first full-time national coach. It was 1986, wins were scarce, and Allan Border was shouldering an inexperienced dressing-room. Simpson’s message – discipline first, then flair – resonated with the likes of David Boon, Dean Jones and a young Steve Waugh. One year later Australia lifted their maiden World Cup in Kolkata; two years after that they regained the Ashes and would not relinquish them until 2005.
Selection duties followed in 1987. Names such as Mark Taylor, Ian Healy, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Ricky Ponting emerged on Simpson’s watch. The crowning moment came in 1995 when Border’s team beat West Indies away, breaking a 19-year drought and unofficially seizing the world No.1 mantle.
“Bob Simpson was one of the greats of Australian cricket and this is a sad day for anyone fortunate to have watched him play or who benefited from his wisdom,” Cricket Australia chair Mike Baird said. “Bob’s decision to come out of retirement to successfully lead the Australian team during the advent of World Series Cricket in 1977 was a wonderful service to the game.”
That service, many argue, ran deeper than results. Former players often recall Simpson’s nets that began at 9am sharp and ended only when basics were mastered. He was blunt, sometimes prickly, but rarely wrong. Technique mattered, but so did attitude: turn up early, field like your life depends on it, and never think the job is done.
“Simmo could spot a lazy stride from 40 yards,” one former pupil said this week. “And he’d tell you, right there, no sugar-coating.”
Not all embraced the hard lines – some in the early nineties wondered whether the squad had outgrown his regimental style – yet few dispute the foundations he laid for the side that later dominated under Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting.
Beyond the boundary, Simpson wrote several coaching manuals, served as a consultant to other nations, and spent summers commentating on radio, always happy to dissect a front elbow or field placement. He was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in 1978 and inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2006.
Simpson is survived by his wife Meg, children and grandchildren. Funeral details will be confirmed by the family in coming days.
Cricket fans of all generations, from those who watched the triple-century in Manchester to youngsters who first heard his name in old Ashes highlights, will pause this week. A hundred figures helped build modern Australian cricket; a handful stand taller than the rest. Bob Simpson was one of them.
