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
Before the Tests got underway, Australia faced West Zone, and the skipper made 89 in a drawn match. Aside from the five Tests, the tourists would also play each of the five zones once. The First Test in Bombay saw Australia take a lead of 74 runs on the first innings. The match was marred by a controversial umpiring decision on the fourth day when Srinivas Venkataraghavan was given out caught behind in the second innings after missing the ball by roughly a foot. Most of the Australian players were dissatisfied with the events, feeling that the batsman had been robbed. In the meantime, the public address system declared that Lawry and his men had cheated. It resulted in crowd rioting and the crowd started to shout "Lawry, Lawry, Lawry". The spectators lit fires and threw projectiles at the Australians after Lawry refused to adjourn the match, contrary to police advice that warned them to run for their lives. During the chaos, Johnny Gleeson was hit in the head by a bottle, and when the teams left the field at the end of the Indian innings, Lawry was hit by a flying chair. Australia went on to reach the target of 64 and win by eight wickets after the Indians fell for 137, sparking off another riot. Former Indian captain Lala Amarnath defended Lawry, saying that he was not responsible for the umpiring error. Ajit Wadekar, who played in the match, said that "With a little graciousness, the unfortunate episode...could have been avoided". He said that an Australian win was inevitable, so Lawry should have adjourned the game and defused the riot. In another incident, Lawry threw his baggy green cap on the ground after the umpires adjourned play for the luncheon interval; Lawry felt that there was time for one more over. The Australian captain was not prominent with the bat in his team's win; he made 25 and 2.