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.
MCC tour of Australia in 1965–66
Bill Lawry won the toss for Victoria and elected to bat, making 153 himself and adding 104 for the first wicket with Ian Redpath (53). When Lawry reached 100 his bails were found on the ground and Cowdrey and Murray appealed for hit wicket, but the umpire gave him not out (no one has seen the bails knocked off). In the afternoon Dave Brown took 4/77 to reduce them to 262/7. The following morning Graeme Watson made 59 not out and added 122 runs with Bob Cowper's brother David Cowper (the wicketkeeper), who made 60 not out on his First Class debut. Lawry declared on 384/7 and almost bowled out the MCC in the remainder of the day, they were 211/9 at stumps and all out for the same score first thing on the third day. John Edrich and M.J.K. Smith both made 46, but Keith Stackpole's 4/64 with his occasional off-spin that caused the most damage on a turning wicket. Lawry declined to enforce the follow on and batted again, making 61, but seeing his team fall for 165 to the Fred Titmus (4/50) and Ken Barrington (4/24). This left the MCC 329 to win, but Alan Connolly (4/84) removed Bob Barber for a duck and Edrich for 1 before they recovered to 65/2 at the end of the day. Ken Barrington dug himself in for 158 "an innings of rugged, fighting grandeur", and added 160 for the fourth wicket with Colin Cowdrey. After Cowdrey was out for a lacklustre 52 the tail collapsed to Watson's medium paced bowling (3/24) to be out for 306, 32 runs short of their goal. The defeat did little to dampen the MCC's reputation for exciting cricket as they had chased the runs, and it was their only defeat until the Fourth Test.