Paula Xiberras
Mark Nicholas, the elegant Englishman has seamlessly (pardon the pun) been part of Channel Nine’s cricket coverage for quite a few summers now and this week past, was with the crew in Tasmania covering this season’s second test match.
Mark always enjoys visiting Tasmania as he elaborated when we spoke recently. He recounts how his wife and daughter love visiting the area around the fishing harbour/wharf and staying at the old fashioned majesty of the Henry Jones Hotel.
Salamanca and MONA are a must see on their visits here and Mark tells me he has ambitions to see much more of the state after talking to his stepson who made an extensive trip calling what he saw and experienced ‘breathtaking’.
As well as his cricketing and commentating ability Mark is bringing an extra talent to the commentary box this summer with the release of his first book ‘A Beautiful Game’.
To Mark cricket is indeed a beautiful game, acknowledging that there are and have been some uglier moments such as the bodyline series. Mark is a fine writer and has already had comments encouraging him to not stop writing.
Mark himself says writing the book was a dream of his and one of his most fulfilling professional projects and although this book concentrates predominately on England and Australian cricket clashes, Mark says he has many more stories to tell from cricket experiences in India and Sri Lanka, so we can expect more books by Mark in the future. Another ambition of Mark’s is to work behind the scenes of broadcast, in television production.
In the book Mark describes to the reader the sense of nirvana, or in master batsman Tendulkar’s word ‘floating’, that occurs for some the greats when they are so into their batting that they no longer fear anything and are unaware of the bowler or anything else around them, confident in the knowledge they can hit the ball.
A lovely story Mark recounts in the book is one about Bradman. When Jeff Thomson was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame in 2016. The next day he was a guest on Kerry O’Keefe’s radio program and told a brilliant memoir from1977 during a rest day in a test match against India.
Jeff was invited to a doctor’s and ‘cricket tragic’ house for lunch. Among the other guests was the Don himself. The doctor’s teenage sons harboured a desire to play cricket with Jeff and Don and so it was that they made their way to the backyard.
The Don was impeccably dressed and Jeff thought what a fantastic opportunity it was to bowl to him but thinking again he considered if he did bowl the speed of his bowling could do some serious harm so he decided to opt for some safer ‘leggies’.
No such allowances made by the teenage sons who indulged in a bit of fast bowling.
Thommo was fearful but unnecessarily so because the great Don Bradman hit them all over the ground. A shocked Thommo remembers at the conclusion of play, the Don putting the bat under his arm and giving him, a knowing wink!
Mark’s book ‘A Beautiful Game’ is out now published by Allen and Unwin.
