Bill Lawry
Lawry was born in the Melbourne suburb of Thornbury. He was given the names William Morris after the early Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes. His father Alfred played amateur cricket until the age of 51. Bill never saw his father play, who was aged 47 when Bill was born. Aged nine, he played competitive cricket for the first time with the Thornbury Presbyterian Church team. He spent three years there, as well as playing for Preston Technical School. When he was twelve, he entered Melbourne's district competition playing for Northcote's fourth team, working his way up to the First XI by the age of sixteen. At the time, he was apprenticed as a plumber and attending Preston Technical College. Lawry was selected for Victoria's Second XI at the age of seventeen. He made a duck against the South Australians and did not see any further action for the Seconds for the rest of the summer of 1954–55. The following season, Lawry was recalled to the Seconds and scored 183 against South Australia.
Bill Lawry
"It was in South Africa in 1969–70 that his batting, and with it his captaincy, began to falter. The unfortunate experiences he and his men endured in India prior to visiting South Africa, those incidents there and on and off the field, began to affect his outlook, converted it, I feel, into what might be called an inlook...He had to survive investigation of his leadership by the Australian Board of Control in the light of adverse reports from the authorities of both India and South Africa. I believe Bill Lawry had developed a sizable chip on his shoulder before the summer of 1970–71."
Lawry's men left directly for South Africa. Already tired, they confronted fast and bouncy pitches in contrast to low, slow and dusty spinning pitches in India. Upon arrival, Lawry declared Ian Chappell to be the best batsman in the world, something that would come back to haunt him. For his part, the Australian commentator Alan McGilvray said that when they arrived in Johannesburg, the Australians "looked haggard. Their eyes seemed to be standing out of their heads and some of them looked positively yellow." The Australians played their first match of the tour within a week of leaving the subcontinent. Prior to this first match, most of the team were seen sleeping on the benches at the ground half an hour before play was due to start. Initially, it appeared that the Australians were unaffected by the long campaign and change in conditions; they won their first two lead-in matches against their provincial sides by an innings and ten wickets respectively, Lawry scoring 86 against North Eastern Transvaal and 157 against Griqualand West, finishing unbeaten on both occasions. They drew the third match against Eastern Province, Lawry again unbeaten twice on 9 and 43.