Frank Misson 1938-2024

Rodney Cavalier on a Australian stalwart

Artwork by Fisher Classics

Back in the mid-1990s, I wrote a book about cricket in the 1950s and 1960s - as my publisher called it, ‘that most mysterious of eras, just before one’s birth.’ I cast my net widely hunting down players, administrators, journalists and broadcasters from the era, with an unspoken sense that maybe it was just as well someone was doing this. One day, all these figures would be gone. And today, of those I interviewed, barely half a dozen remain.

Frank Misson died on 11 September. I remember our interview with special vividness, as it took place in his car. We arranged to meet in the carpark at the Sydney Football Stadium about 4pm and, there being no other obvious venue, I sat in his passenger seat until long after my C90 cassette was used up. We could easily have gone longer, but I was feeling embarrassed that we were the last car, and that worried that we might get locked in. Frank, silver-haired but still superfit, was a tremendous, self-deprecating raconteur, and an incorrigible prankster: nothing gave him so much pleasure as narrating how he and Bill Lawry slipped the Queen Mother’s spoons in the pocket of Australia’s 1961 Ashes tour manager Syd Webb. Frank had been an apostle of physical fitness long before it was fashionable, even travelling with his own juicer. The irony is that his career was cut short by injury - or, at least, the maladroit treatment of a mishap on that trip. Not that Frank was bitter: being a cricketer had been a tremendous life, and being an ex-cricketer full of unexpected joys. Rodney Cavalier, that doyen of cricket history and friend of Cricket Et Al, has been kind enough to let us republish this delightful tribute to fine all-rounder and finer bloke. - GH

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Adelaide. Last day of January 1961. Temperature over 100 on the old scale. Energy-sapping heat envelops play on this fourth day of the Fourth Test, another day of expectation, a day characteristic of all the days in a Test series, Australia v West Indies, that lives forever in the memory of we who were there. We were there if we were breathing and in love with cricket wherever we might actually have been. Our involvement was total in a golden summer of cricket.

Under the leadership of Frank Worrell, a West Indies side was realising its greatness. After a tie in the First Test and a sound defeat in the Second, the West Indies had crushed Australia at the SCG. Now in Adelaide, Rohan Kanhai was heading toward his second century in the match. Australia was without an injured Davo, Richie was reduced to bowling seamers, West Indies were 256 runs in front, one wicket down on a pitch that is giving the bowlers nothing.

One run short of achieving that second century, Australia’s blonde quick delivered a ball on a good length. Kanhai struck the ball not far from the wicket and ran. The non-striker responded. So did the bowler. In a race to the same end, the bowler arrived first, fell on the ball and threw the ball under-arm to break the stumps. What Kanhai had not counted on was this bowler was an athlete at the peak of his fitness, motivated by doing honour to the baggy green, playing in only his second Test and wanting to prove he was worthy of his place in the side.

Here was heroism, reduced to a moment, a reaction inside the bounds of possibility, will and physical fitness, response instant. Different considerations apply to the heroics of an innings, a spell of bowling, a long session in the field.

Beyond all doubt a Test cricketer had arrived, thoroughly worth his place in the side. At age 22 cricket at the top was his life to enjoy. Life did not work out that way.

Francis Michael Misson was born in Redfern in Sydney’s east on 19 November 1938. His father, Francis Henry, made a living as an off-course bookmaker, an activity not lawful but common. His mother, Irene, looked after the family home. Frank was an only child.

A world war reached the Australian mainland just after Frank reached three. He was conscious enough of adult conversation in his midst to know this was a time of uncertainty. His father’s occupation added to that uncertainty. A pupil at Burke Street Public School from kindergarten to fourth class. He discovered early the joys of sport on Redfern Oval, usually as a spectator. Not too distant were the expansive acres of Centennial Park. It was a childhood of activity, a lot of the activity was organised sport.

In a laneway intersecting a row of terraces local lads played cricket in deadly earnest. The lane was largely free of traffic, so was Redfern for most of the time. Before mass ownership of motor vehicles, street cricket had its last safe splendour.

Bookmaking had good times and bad times. When Frank was ten, his father had a good year that enabled a family move to Rosebery where he attended Gardeners Road Public. A scholarship afforded Frank a choice of Sydney Boys High or Randwick Boys. Frank decided a school with a reputation for tone was not him. He enrolled at Randwick in 1951. Only two years earlier, Randwick had enrolled students in the senior years and offered candidates for the Leaving Certificate. Frank was part of an old school enjoying its status as high school.

Randwick Boys was a formidable nursery for any of several cricket clubs in Sydney’s east and for the mighty Randwick Rugby. Alumni included Cyril Towers, an all-time rugby great. Frank’s near contemporary was Dick Thornett (born 1940), one of the few Australians to have been a triple international. Frank was in his element at a school proud of its sporting traditions, determined to be dominant in local competition. He was in the school firsts in cricket and in rugby where he played in the centres or at fullback.

Frank had started senior school in 1953 when his father fell on hard times. Staying at school was not an option. He became an employee of Australian Paper Mills, a secure job with a regular wage. For much needed extra cash, he maintained neighbouring tennis courts on weekends.

His employment relationship with APM was what cricketers of his era faced if working in the private sector. APM kept him on their books, they permitted him time to play cricket at ever more senior levels, they did not pay him during absences. Nor was cricket paying a living wage.

Ray Lindwall was his hero. As much as he could he modelled his action on that most graceful of quicks – a bowler whom newsreels reveal had a run up and delivery identical to Harold Larwood.

Not that cricket had claimed Frank completely. Frank attended the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne where he was dazzled by John Landy and distance runners. At his own expense Frank joined the athletics program run by Percy Cerrutty of legend at Portsea. Cerutty imposed a regime intended to punish based on running for miles upon mile, up and down sandhills, day upon day – and Frank was loving it. A long day in the field, by comparison, was a piece of cake.

Frank made his debut in grade cricket for Glebe in 1955-56. In two matches he took 7 wickets for 34, including a 5-20. His runs almost equalled wickets taken. Frank was to do better with bat and ball. Glebe amalgamated with South Sydney. Frank kept taking wickets for an average below 20. He was pushing his batting average into the twenties without the benefit of not outs. NSW selectors were noticing the statistics, they were going to the grounds to see for themselves his bowling action. Selectors noted his enthusiasm for the game, a quality more convincng than a stunning performance or two.

Frank made his first class debut at Perth in the last game of the 1958-59 Sheffield Shield. Gordon Rorke, another quick with qualities of character so similar to Frank, withdrew from the side because of fibrositis. In an age of rail, Gordon’s withdrawal was so late that the NSW Cricket Association had to cover the cost of an airfare for Frank to be there for the start of play. Opening the bowling with Davidson, Frank removed nos.3 and 4 in the space of three balls, second victim Bob Simpson. NSW won by an innings. Frank claimed 3-31 and 3-64. A score of 19 in the one innings he played was a signature for the career that followed.

With the Australian Test side touring India and Pakistan, New South Wales was down six players. Its quicks – Lindwall, Alan Davidson and Gordon Rorke – were on the sub-continent. Frank was an all but automatic selection. Against Queensland in Brisbane he was opening with Barry Bates, right-arm quick, who was playing the first of his ten matches for NSW.

Barry Bates is with us still, age 85, a lad from Port Kembla who did not take to Sydney. He was playing in junior representative sides, aged 11, as a batsman. After taking 63 wickets in a season, he was offered a trial with the Randwick DCC. He told his father he did not like the big city. Jack Chegwyn selected him in the NSW colts teams of 1959 and 1960 where he performed well enough to take his place beside Frank. Cricket was not an imperative though he continued to play first grade in Illawarra until he was 36. Barry Bates made his living in insurance. He is one of those names appearing in scorebooks who do not feature in our consciousness beyond the bare bones of scores and averages.

Minus the Test players, NSW achieved another innings victory. In the side were three future Test players, including Brian Booth. Frank’s haul was two wickets in the first, three in the second, statistics that were also becoming his signature.

Through that season his best was 4-58 against Victoria at the SCG. Though several innings were without a wicket, in no match was Frank unrewarded. The selectors, looking beyond statistics, liked what they saw. A genial man who relishes being part of a team is exactly the player selectors want in a dressing room, a view held by generations of selectors who have given the benefit of the doubt to a good team man. A player who makes other players feel good about themselves is worth more than deeds can say.

During a match, actual play occupies at most six hours. Big chunks of time are spent in dressing rooms in breaks for lunch and tea. Players are waiting and watching, they are getting to and from the ground, practising before the start of play and through the day when not required. At night they wind down. Off-field morale is critical to a team’s success. As an exemplar of physical fitness, Frank proved that being fit informed agility and endurance. A fit player was able to respond of the instant, however objectively weary the body might be.

During that season or thereabouts, his fellow players coined a nickname. The early 1960s were a creative time for coining names, many were the efforts of Ray Flockton, an all-rounder who might have played Tests if the breaks had fallen his way. Nothing as obvious as “Misso” was going to emerge from these conjurings. Drop the second s from Misson and you have Mison, pronounced Myson, and you are a short step away from inserting a prefix drawn from the antibiotic streptomycin. Frank was Strepta. Which I regard as brilliant.

As the golden summer of 1960-61 opened, Gordon Rorke returned to the NSW side after surviving illness contracted in India, an illness which had threatened his life and sent him to bed for long months. Rorke opened the bowling with Davidson. It was soon apparent illness and confinement had deprived Gordon of yards of speed. Gordon gave his all, an affirmation for Frank that cricket was as much about application and fitness as it was raw ability. The same could be said (and was) of Alan Davidson who never delivered a ball that was not the best possible. In an age without coaches, Frank Misson had excellent teachers.

First Shield game was against Queensland at the SCG. Entering the attack as first change, Frank took one wicket in the first innings, none in the second. Australian XI matches served as an indication of selectors’ intentions. The Australian XI match in Perth in November 1960 saw six non-Test players selected. Frank opened the attack with Des Hoare, Western Australian, who had made his own first class debut five years earlier. Frank took three wickets in each innings. The match enhanced his prospects for Test selection.

Heading into the First Test scheduled for the beginning of December, Australia’s opening attack was settled. Alan Davidson and Ian Meckiff had enjoyed success in the Ashes of 1958-59, then in India and Pakistan. Selectors saw no need for a third quick, not with Ken Mackay to bottle opposition batting at any time. Spin was at least as important as speed: Benaud and Lindsay Kline provided that skill along with batsmen more than handy with their twirlers.

Selectors choose a team for the first Test of a series in the hope and expectation the XI will remain for the next four. In this era, a selection panel of Sir Donald Bradman, Jack Ryder and Dudley Seddon tended to stick to those who had been good enough to warrant selection. They were not unaware of outstanding performances by those vying for selection. A small army of unofficial scouts acted as their eyes and ears. Only injury and loss of form were going to provide places in the Test XI. An aphorism explained the strategy: “it’s harder to get out of the Australian team than it is to get in”.

The First Test finished in an epic tie. All eleven players had secured their places. Frank was taking a few wickets in Shield, nothing notable. In the prelude to the Second Test, Frank’s batting included scores of 20 and 50 against WA, proof he was more than useful. In the NSW game against the West Indies, days before the Second Test started, Frank took four wickets in his contribution to an innings victory. When Meckiff sustained an ankle injury, Frank was in the Test side. He knew his place was interim. He expected the future to be on his side.

On his second delivery he dismissed Conrad Hunte, one of the West Indies key batsman. He later dismissed Worrell for a duck. Frank was adept at getting a wicket before the batsman settled. Those two were his all. His one innings at no.11 was 0 not out. Meckiff returned for the Third, did not impress and was dropped. Frank was back in a team minus Alan Davidson. With Hoare making his debut, the opening duo had one Test between them, a rare situation for Australia other than when resuming from war or amid schism. In the Windies first innings, Frank took 3-79 but was hammered in the second for no wickets.

Frank achieved a run out, described above, regarded as miraculous by all who observed it. Johnnie Moyes, ever laconic, employed an unusually lofty description: “this was a fine effort on Misson’s part”. Frank had indeed pulled off a miraculous run out without resorting to miracle. No, he brought to that moment years of practice and training, thousands of miles of running with purpose. One who was dazzled was DG Bradman. Frank had every reason to be confident he was going to be the second quick selected for the Ashes tour of 1961. One should note, in that Test, Frank bagged a pair and was third victim in a Lance Gibbs hat trick.

The Australian touring party of seventeen included three who had not played a Test – Brian Booth, Bill Lawry and Graham McKenzie. The team included Neil Harvey on his fourth Ashes sojourn. Benaud, Davidson and Colin McDonald were on their third. Odd were the omissions of Johnny Martin and Des Hoare, no less odd who were selected in their place. Selectors have their reasons.

Frank was filled with a joy that never departed him. The dream of every Australian cricketer was to be part of an Australian touring party in England playing for the Ashes. Reporting to APM he needed to be absent for the foreseeable future, the company sacked him on the spot. There was likely a job for him on return but no guarantees. It mattered not. Every photo of Frank on that tour captures his unbounded exuberance.

So were his memories of every aspect of the mission of the 1961 Australians. You were blessed to listen to Frank’s recall however many years later. Team photos show Frank, always in the second row, towering over his mates. If happiness could be bottled, working formula is the smile of Frank Misson in 1961 at any stage of his journey to England, during the tour, on return.

A long tour it was. The NSW players left Sydney by air on 14 March to begin festivities and cricket in Launceston, Hobart and Perth with serious games against local sides. Only on 15 March did the players board the Himalaya for the journey to England. The ship stopped at Colombo, Bombay, Aden, Cairo and Malta, providing time for players to take in the sights. On 21 April the ship arrived at Tilbury Dock in Southampton for the first of many engulfing welcomes. Australian players were VIPs.

For Frank the voyage was fun and refreshing. Brian Booth kept a diary published in 2009 in which Frank makes many appearances. These were days and nights between sleep and meals of calisthenics, table tennis and signing autograph sheets. In Malta an infected tonsil compelled Frank to spend overnight in hospital. Every day Frank otherwise occupied himself by running around the deck, lap upon lap, unpuffed, enjoying himself far too much for wags in the Australian party.

Intending to halt him or at least slow Frank down, they spread deck chairs in his path. Frank approached the barrier, did not break his pace and hurdled. The barrier was made higher. Frank continued to hurdle until he couldn’t. Then he climbed over and kept running. He had made his point, the barriers came down. After Adelaide, evincing pleasure so palpable in voyaging, the other sixteen players, management and travelling reporters recognised someone special was in their midst.

Given time to find their land legs, eight days passed before the traditional opening match at Worcester. (For me, a rapid lesson in English pronunciations. Once only did I refer to Waughsester and Liesester.) Allowances for expenses were at best basic. Meals were part of the deal, set menu, no supplements. Staying at the Waldorf, day one brought home the inadequacies of meal arrangements and the sharp costs if you stepped outside the menu. An order of a bowl of fruit cost a princely £50, a quantum beyond their budgets. Thereafter Frank strolled to Covent Garden to procure fruit for the team.

Against Worcestershire Frank opened the bowling with Ron Gaunt, a Victorian quick who might have been competing for the spot as second quick to Davo. Form on tour matters on tour. In two innings, Frank took one wicket, Gaunt four. Absent was chatter about Gaunt pressing for Test selection. Small hauls continued. Another potential rival was McKenzie, team baby, who made his tour debut against Lancashire, third match of the tour, entering the attack after Davo and Gaunt. None of the three stood out. Davo was a certainty. So, it appeared, was Frank unless he lost form in a big way.

A batsman was the player impressing. Bill Lawry was scoring a succession of quality centuries that made his claim on selection undeniable. What was happening at the top of the order was not affecting the bottom. Australia was likely to enter the First Test with two quicks backed by Mackay. Statistics do not alone tell us the comfort Frank provided to the selection panel on tour – Benaud, Harvey and McDonald.  Frank was taking wickets in a succession of matches so as to provide that comfort. Benaud was moving Frank around the order. In the first innings against Gloucestershire Frank entered the attack six bowlers down.

Wickets were shared in the first eight matches, reflecting the intention of Benaud and stand-in captains to give everyone a go. The first five-four belonged to Davo - one almost writes of course - when he demolished the MCC at Lord’s (6-46, 3-58). McKenzie was impressing but not such as to disturb the established order. On Test eve against Sussex Frank achieved his first five-wicket haul, 6-75; his best ever performance in first class cricket.

Rain ruined a First Test which was drawn, Australia on top, wickets shared, three to Misson, selection for Second Test secured. In the two games between Tests, McKenzie came good. Richie Benaud had dreamed of captaining his country at Lord’s and here he was, beset with shoulder problems that forced him to declare himself unavailable. To take his place, selectors chose McKenzie. A three-pronged fast attack was a rarity in that era though employed to good effect in Australia during the 1958-59 series.

Being without a specialist spinner did not matter. The three quicks between them took nine wickets in each innings, with five-fors to Davo in the first innings and McKenzie in the second. Frank turned in a worthy four wickets. With the bat at no.11 in his only innings, Frank scored 25 not out, contributing to the addition of 102 runs by the tail. Those runs were decisive. Australia was 1-0 in the series and Frank Misson had played his final Test.

Benaud’s return caused a squeeze down the order, McKenzie was a star, each of the batsmen was secure. Frank was the one deemed expendable. His return to the Test XI was high probability. What cruelled Frank happened in a county game in a sequence of unthinking that preceded the pulling of a calf muscle. Frank spoke evocatively of the catastrophe in an interview with Gideon Haigh, published in The Summer Game: Australian Test Cricket 1949-71 (Text Publishing 1997): ‘I had to go on and replace someone and did all the things you shouldn’t do: jumped out of a chair, didn’t warm up, ran on the field and straight away chased a ball to the boundary. Bang!’

What followed was the disaster. On advice, Frank took a hot bath, as hot as he could stand. We know now heat was the worst treatment possible. What his calf needed was ice and elevation. Frank would never be the bowler he was before the pulled muscle. Many years were ahead, many hundreds of overs but Frank would not be the same.

We have all known schoolboy champions, certain Test players in our adolescent imaginings. Few made first grade. Advancing in representative cricket is a sequence of colossal vertical steps. Very few in grade ranks ever look like playing for their state, only a small number of state players are good enough for Test selection, only the best of the best are able to consolidate a place in the Test side. Frank had made each of those steps, he was consolidating his Test place, no one else was emerging of the calibre of Davidson, McKenzie and himself.

His injury did not cripple. His injury did not prevent him from playing cricket on the rest of the tour and for years after. What the injury did was deprive Frank of the edge that makes the difference between Test class and a level short of.

On the 1961 tour Frank played in nine more matches without a notable performance. Not then, not ever, did Frank gripe about life’s vicissitudes. Stoicism in the face of adversity was central to his character. There was to much to enjoy. Forever in his memory were Edinburgh Castle, the Firth of Forth, Sherwood Forest. His performance on tour was entirely creditable – 51 wickets at an average of 25.23. Scoring 194 runs was more than creditable. Australia was doing well to have a no.11 who was good enough to be scoring a handy ten to twenty most times at bat.

In the 1961-62 season he made one haul of three wickets: in 17 innings he captured 18 wickets. NSW selectors stuck to a champion in 1962-63, Australia’s selectors gave him a chance to press for Test selection by including him in an Australian XI versus MCC. He managed three wickets in the first innings, a performance not sufficient to take his place beside Davidson and McKenzie. At the end of the season Davo was going to retire. Frank did not enter the frame. Selectors announced their intentions by experimenting with Colin Guest in the Third Test and Neil Hawke in the Fifth. The bowler who replaced the mighty Davo was not going to be Frank.

In his final season of first class, Frank did not do better than one wicket in any innings. In 15 innings he captured 10 wickets. By then Dave Renneberg and Graham Corling had emerged.

Frank continued in grade, firstly for Glebe-South Sydney, then for one of the iterations of a Sydney Cricket Club. He was among the wickets most game with the occasional five-for. He retired at the end of 1968-69 with 185 wickets in his bag at an average of 21.7. His batting was the essence of reliability – 2217 runs at 22.8.

He fell in love with Carole Reuben, an English athlete of some prowess. They had met in the Gray Nicholls warehouse when he was looking at bats. They married in 1964. When Carole’s mother fell ill, Frank took his leave of APM to be with Carole as she looked after her mother. Ever resourceful, Frank found work in England, including coaching for Accrington CC in the Lancashire Leagues.

The business model of league cricket in England was based on local people chipping in what they could, plus local businesses, to pay for an overseas professional to have a good time and hope he makes a contribution out of the ordinary on the field. Many Australians have spent a year in the leagues. Bob Simpson had been contracted to Accrington in 1959, Shane Warne was to be there in 1991. You will have noted these players had their careers ahead of them. Not Frank when he joined Accrington in 1967. The club made it worth his while to be absent from APM without pay.

His first class career was well over by then yet the cricket committee in Accrington, wise in the ways of the game, had seen enough of Frank to reckon he was a good investment. So it proved. Frank secured 50 wickets neat, including four five-wicket hauls. Average 14.3. Frank enjoyed his time with the club. I rang him from the ground in 2013 to ask if he could guess where I was. Two objects were all I needed for Frank to declare “you’re at the Cemetery Ground”.

With cricket definitively behind him, Frank returned to the employ of APM. There would be no future breaks in employment. Frank was travelling a lot, making sales, and rose through the ranks to become NSW manager. A son, David, was born in the Accrington year of 1967. Michael arrived in 1973. Seeking the stability denied to him in childhood, he laid down anchors. In 1964 he purchased a home in Maroubra where he lived for the rest of his days.

Pursuing fitness continued at fanatical levels. His two sons entered the fitness industry. Frank played tennis at the SCG courts with the likes of Ian Craig, Arthur Morris and Brian Booth, mostly on a Thursday. (All are now gone.) With Carole beside him, Frank ran and walked around Centennial Park until his hips gave way and his joints were stiffening. Swimming enabled him to stay fit. At Wylie’s Baths, Coogee, he swam in saltwater, 50-60 laps per day every day of the year.

His interior life was rich. He set aside the time to read the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review and The Australian from cover to cover. He most definitely did not read the Daily Telegraph. The sports pages were of obvious interest. Frank enjoyed the cricket writings of Mike Coward and Spiro Zavos on rugby.

Frank loved thrillers. Rod McGeoch of Olympics fame, a Trustee of the SCG, had come into Frank’s friendship through training sessions with Michael Misson, reinforced at lunches with Frank in the Trustees Reserve during Tests. With Michael as middle man, Rod forwarded consignments of books authored by the likes of David Baldacci, James Patterson, Dan Brown, Daniel Silva and John Marsden.

Friendship with Frank Misson was a rest of your life relationship. No great secret in why. Frank enjoyed talking to people, he enjoyed listening to what others had to say. He was good company and was sought out for that company. He put others first.

In 1999, Sir Nicholas Shehadie, Chairman of the Trustees of the SCG, invited Australian players from the 1958-59 Ashes to Sydney for the Test at the beginning of January. Frank was also present, by the most wonderful chance, as guest of a Labor identity. I met Frank that day and I met Gordon Rorke and Lindsay Kline. Each of them had lived so vividly in my fondest imaginings that it was scarce believable each was a real person and I was in their midst.

Frank and Gordon became regulars at SCG occasions, honoured by name in each welcome. Lindsay I encountered each year at Adelaide.

The years have taken a toll on the heroes of our youth. We have lost one of the finest.

Frank Misson played five Test for Australia to take 16 wickets at 38.5. In first class cricket he took 177 wickets at 31.1. His batting was steady, sometimes more than handy: 38 runs in Tests for an average of 19.0; 1052 first class runs at an average of 17.5.