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.
Basil Bridge
Bridge made his debut at the age of 17 in a single match in 1955 and played in a few more first-team matches in 1956 before disappearing from first-class cricket for two years on National Service. He returned to Warwickshire in 1959 and after being omitted from the first team in the opening games was brought into the side before the end of May and then played regularly across the rest of the season. In June, bowling in tandem with his rival for the spinning role in the team, Geoffrey Hill, he took eight-second-innings Cambridge University wickets for 56 runs (11 for 109 in the match), and these remained the best bowling figures of his career. In the season as a whole, he took 85 wickets at an average of 22.60. "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack" noted "the increased usefulness of Bridge... whose ability to keep a length when under heavy fire rendered him a great asset on easy pitches".