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While Jack is well known as a broadcaster, few may be aware that, when he wasn’t cruising the country looking for stories, Jack spent many a weekend playing senior club cricket in Wellington.

Jack’s love of the game rubbed off on his son Bryan and father and son played together briefly in the Wellington Collegians top side.

When the Typhoon Came to Town

The ‘Typhoon’ blew away Australia to retain the Ashes in 1955. Richie Benaud said he was the fastest he had ever seen and Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson, came to dinner at my house in Wellington, March 1955.

In the first test at Brisbane, Tyson returned one wicket for 160 runs and England lost. He shortened his run and proceeded to demolish Australia in the remaining tests, including 7 for 27 in the second innings at Melbourne. Players and commentators agreed that his unbridled pace in that innings was probably unequalled in all cricket.

It was the habit of England sides in those years to tag a short tour of New Zealand on to the end of the Ashes series. The tours here were as much about R&R after the hard months in Australia as they were about cricket. But in 1955, England still managed to reduce us to our lowest ebb: all out for 26 in the second innings at Eden Park. Tyson bowled at leisurely pace – well, below 100mph anyway – and picked up a couple of wickets.

The Typhoon’s feats across the Tasman had been big news in New Zealand and it had stirred my dad’s memory of a Tyson family he had known well in our native Lancashire. Sure enough, a flurry of letters home confirmed it: Frank was born in our home town of Farnworth, near Bolton. He later went south, graduated from Durham university and played cricket for Northamptonshire.

So Frank came to dinner to get reacquainted with dad and meet the Perkins family. I was a cricket-mad 15 year old, and a bowler to boot – albeit a bit short on pace compared to Frank. I hung on his every word, eager for tips and tidbits I could tuck away, to later flourish in the faces of my envious schoolmates – I would have washed his feet.

But Frank was exhausted from his heroics in Aussie; he was weary of cricket and just wanted to relax and chat about home. His interest quickened, however, when he discovered that I played the piano and I think he genuinely enjoyed my rendition of Rachmaninoff’s C sharp minor Prelude.

During the England side’s stay in Wellington, a speed test for Frank was somewhat hastily organized at Wellington College, where I was in my second year. The great fast bowler, I believe somewhat reluctantly, hurled down a few thunderbolts while still wearing a couple of sweaters and off hardly any run up.

I was told he still clocked in around 90mph, but regardless of pace, the occasion itself was magical for me and my cricketing mates gathered around the wicket. The trick with the loaves and fishes in the desert must have had a similar aura.

And of course, it afforded me the opportunity to cover myself with glory in front of my peers, when I stepped forward, shook the hand and chatted briefly to the greatest fast bowler in the world – Frank ‘Typhoon’ Tyson.

You can read more of Jack’s blogs and more at www.cricketmystery.com