After seeing the death notice for Billy in this morning's ODT advising a private family service has been held, and for donations to be made to Otago Cricket Association (Billy caring for cricket in the region until the very last), I thought I'd expand on the lessons and opportunities that Billy provided to me over that 5-6 years or so of interactions:
- if a batsman was too lazy to pick up the ball to throw back to the bowler in the nets, Billy would give them a serve. And rightly so. The bowler is going to the effort of bowling to you and are bending their back in the process, so it's not too much to ask to pick up the ball to throw it back to them.
- Billy had plenty of shiny new four-pieces to share with quick bowlers in the indoor nets, but they didn't get it just as a matter of course. They had to show the discipline to earn them. If they started bowling short regularly with them, he'd happily take the new cherry off them.
- He may have bowled medium-pace and then some offspin from my understanding, but his understanding - not only of the mechanics of all types of bowling but leg-spin in particular (my discipline) - was outstanding. This is no understatement, but I was batting one day, and he picked up a ball, grinned at me, then rolled the arm over. The ball pitched well outside leg stump and beat me outside off - on an indoor artificial surface, no less. Then he grinned at me again. He would have been about 58-59 at this point.
- While he certainly earned a living from his coaching in Dunedin, I don't think there was much fat in the business operation. Which made his kindness towards the likes of me even more impressive. My family was able to afford the winter coaching fee (might have been about $400, which was a bit in the mid-1990s) but he always found ways for others to take part if things were a bit tight.
- on top of the "paid coaching" I received from Billy, he saw I was passionate about giving cricket a go, so would give me the opportunity to come down to 2, 3, 4 extra sessions for free just to bowl at whoever might be there. Sometimes I'd turn up and bowl a ball of suitcases, trying to hit a piece of paper he'd put down at the other end of the pitch, while one other notable occasion, when Pakistan were touring NZ and were in Dunedin, he invited me and one other spinner to come down and bowl in an exclusive session with two players - one was Saleem Elahi, who played a handful of games for Pakistan, and the other was a young Saqlain Mushtaq. Without a word of a lie, Billy was talking through the arm ball and the doosra with Saqlain while I was standing next to them. Joyous stuff. I bowled probably about 12 overs to Saleem Elahi and beat the bat just once - but he did nod, and say well bowled, so that's something.
When I was 16, I was wallowing in my very average high school's 2nd XI, with the teacher-coach of the first XI bowling off-spin and playing himself instead of school students (it was allowed as we were playing in the club competition). Billy was not happy at all with this situation, and promptly went about finding me an opportunity to play club cricket. It pissed off a lot of people at my school, and my friends weren't too pleased with me either. I was banned from playing school interchanges, because of this, but - on the flipside - I went from playing 4th grade before Christmas one year to playing 1st grade in the first game back after Christmas, taking 1 for 31 off eight in my debut as a 16yo leg spinner on the notoriously average Dunedin club pitches.
Ultimately, my lack of mental ability hamstrung any real efforts of me going anywhere with my cricket (great net bowler, **** match bowler), but Billy taking me to the club also helped me form lifelong associations with that club and the people within it (and ironically most of my school mates followed me to the club having bagged me when I first left), so I'm forever grateful for that.
As many of the tributes have said, he was a very kind man - while I'll certainly remember his growling "relax bottom hand" at any batsman who was trying to launch every ball delivered to them in the nets, I'll also remember the twinkle in his eyes and his regular words of encouragement.
Cricket in Dunedin is a difficult enough place to emerge from due to the paucity of population and good weather, but during the times Billy was involved in coaching young players, it made it seem possible to go a long way in the game.
