Doughie's ton still gold, 40 years on
For four decades, cricket great Doug Walters has honed the lines that describe one of the most spectacular batting performances at the WACA Ground.
And his delivery is every bit as good as his execution was 40 years ago, when he belted a century in the final session of a 1974 Ashes Test against England.
"Forty years have slipped away very quickly, I can tell you that . . . too quickly," Walters, who at 68 is still coaching young cricketers, said.
"But it was just one of those days where the bowler sort of aimed at the middle of the bat and hit it more often than other days."
Despite his denials, there is something in Walters' still cheeky demeanour that says he planned his feat from the moment he went into the tea-break at three not out.
He dismissed as fanciful Greg Chappell's suggestion that Chappell sacrificed his wicket for 62 so Walters could come in and make quick runs to set up the match.
"I didn't really think about it until I was, well, till I got a hundred, really," he said.
"Greg said to me he got out just so I could make a hundred in the last session. The truth was, he wouldn't get out to give his own mother a hit."
Walters had cracked a swashbuckling 93 as the final over from English quick Bob Willis loomed. Needing 10 for his hundred in the session, he nicked a shot over wicket-keeper Alan Knott's head for four from the second ball of the over but did not score again until the final ball.
"Willis was bowling four or five short ones an over anyway and he'd only given me the one and I knew that fast bowlers couldn't help themselves so I was waiting for him," he said.
"It was probably the most unorthodox shot and looking back it probably would have been easier hitting it over third man for six. But the result was OK and probably as good as I ever hit one in the middle of the bat. It was a great moment."
Afterwards, captain Ian Chappell ordered his players to hide in the shower block as a joke, rather than laud Walters as he returned to the dressing room. Walters said he responded by opening the fridge and sitting down with two bottles of beer.
"I was hoping they would have stayed there because I would have had the whole fridge to myself," he said, adding Chappell had chastised him for playing rash shots.
Willis got his revenge early the next day, dismissing Walters for 103 with no addition to his overnight tally.
"I missed his first one and he yelled out, 'Come on, Dougie, for Christ's sake nick it'," Walters said. "The next one I did and got caught at first slip. I just said, 'Good morning, Bobby', and walked off."
Walters' 170-run partnership with WA's Ross Edwards set up Australia's nine- wicket win in the era of the eight-ball over.
He maintained he could have brought up his hundred well before the last ball had his teammate been a little more sharing with the strike.
"I think I was nearly 70 at drinks, then Ross took the strike for three overs in a row," he said. "I went for something like 27 minutes without facing a ball. I said to him, 'I knew you were an accountant but I didn't think you could count that accurately from one to eight'."
Walters said it was unfortunate his batting performance, which was a quintessential example of how he preferred to play the game, had overshadowed his brilliant bowling effort in England's first innings when he took 2/13 from just 2.3 overs.
His batting masterclass was watched by a massive crowd, which had that day set a WACA attendance record of 23,303, broken the next day by the 23,940 fans who piled through the gates.
Australia claimed the Ashes series for the first time in a decade, winning 4-1, with almost 778,000 fans paying $1 million to attend the Tests.
Walters thinks his kids may have left the bat he used that day in a park years ago.
People still approach him saying they were there the day he smashed the ton but often say they were at other grounds such as Brisbane's Gabba or the SCG in Sydney.
"They were there in spirit I think. They just forget it was in Perth," he laughs.
