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.
English cricket team in Australia in 1946–47
"Bill Edrich did some service as a fastish bowler with a slinging action while Norman Yardley's all-round skill won him a place in all the Tests. With his deceptively plain-looking medium-pace he actually took Bradman's wicket in three successive Test innings, and without any help from a fielder at that. But our out-cricket was simply not good enough. Wright was the best bowler (23 at 44 runs apiece), Bedser was still an enthusiastic and tireless learner (15 at 54), but Bill Voce aged 37, in one of the hottest Australian summers, could not recapture the old magical fire."
Like the batsmen the England bowlers were mostly old hands who had been playing before the war, unfortunately old bowlers rarely do well in Australia and they suffered. Bill Voce was a name well-known down under, he had been Harold Larwood's left-arm new-ball partner in the Bodyline series of 1932–33 and had taken 8/66 using the same tactics when the Australians played Notts in 1934. He was allowed on the "Goodwill Tour" of 1936–37 only after a public apology and took 17 wickets in the first two Tests to see England go 2–0 up in the series, but then he developed a muscle strain and Australia won the last three Tests. In 1946 he was 37 years old, the most senior England player after Hammond, but only a shadow of his former self. He failed to take a wicket in the Tests and was sidelined with a leg strain. Voce had been a spinner in his youth (until he saw Larwood bowl) and Hammond asked him to switch to slow bowling in the middle of the tour, but it was too late for him to change. Like Voce Dick Pollard was granted leave by the army to tour Australia, but was 34 years old, overweight and found that his swing bowling did not take to Australian conditions. He had taken 25 wickets (23.64) in the Victory Tests and was unlucky to not be chosen for a Test in the series, but still had some good seasons for Lancashire on his return home. The medium-fast bowling of Alec Bedser was reckoned to be the equal to that of Maurice Tate despite his poor figures, and he improved tremendously on tour. Making his debut against India at the age of 28 Bedser took 11/145 in his first Test and 11/93 in his second. In Australia he was overbowled and exhausted and found that his natural in-swingers were liked by Australian leg-side batsmen like Sid Barnes. To counter this he gripped the ball across the seam like a spinner and the result was an in-swinging leg-break which would take 30 wickets (16.03) on his return in 1950–51. Don Bradman wrote "the ball with which Alec Bedser bowled me in the Adelaide Test Match was, I think, the finest ever to take my wicket. It must have come three-quarters of the way straight on my off-stump, then suddenly dipped in to pitch on the leg stump, only to turn off the pitch and hit the middle and off stumps." Bedser would take 236 wickets in Tests (a record until 1963) and was the mainstay of the England bowling attack in the decade after the war. Bill Edrich was an enthusiastic fast bowler who could generate a fair pace off a short run up, but his greatest asset was a willingness to bowl. Nevertheless, he was given the new ball in the Second Test, returned the best figures (3/79) and top-scored in both innings with 71 and 119. Norman Yardley was one of the finds of the tour, a 'bits and pieces' all rounder called on to bowl due to the failings of others he dismissed Bradman three times in a row and proved to be a valuable support bowler.