Robert Maskew Cowper (born 5 October 1940) is a former

cricketer Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

who played Test cricket for

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

from 1964 to 1968, and Sheffield Shield cricket for Victoria and Western Australia from 1960 to 1970.

Cricket career

Bob Cowper was the son of Dave Cowper, who captained the Australia national rugby union team in the 1930s. Bob was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, and began playing for Hawthorn-East Melbourne in 1958.''The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket'', Oxford, Melbourne, 1996, pp. 125–26. Two years later he was in the Victorian side. A tall, correct left-handed batsmen, Cowper scored heavily for Victoria in the 1962–63 and 1963–64 seasons and was selected to tour England in 1964. He was successful in the county matches but not in his first Test at Headingley. He took part in Australia's next tour, to the West Indies in 1964-65, when he "displayed courage, a cool temperament and fine technique in dealing with the hostile pace of

Hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gr ...

and Griffith". He was Australia's leading run-scorer in the Test series, with 417 runs at an average of 52.12, including centuries in the Second and Fourth Tests. He was dropped in the

1965–66 Ashes series The 1965–66 Ashes series consisted of five cricket Test matches, each of five days with six hours play and eight ball overs. It formed part of the MCC tour of Australia in 1965–66 and the matches outside the Tests were played in the name of ...

for slow scoring. When he was recalled for the Fifth Test at Melbourne he made the first Test triple-century in Australia: 307 from 589 balls in 727 minutes.

Matthew Hayden Matthew Lawrence Hayden (born 29 October 1971) is an Australian cricket commentator and former cricketer. His career spanned fifteen years. Hayden was a powerful and aggressive left-handed batting order (cricket)#opening batsman, opening batsm ...

's 380 against Zimbabwe in 2002–03 is now the highest Test century in Australia, but Cowper's remains the longest. After his triple-century he was never omitted from the Test side until a hand injury forced him out of the Fifth Test in

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...

. In the last 13 matches of his Test career (the 1966–67, 1967–68, and 1968 series) he scored 931 runs at 38.79 and took 31 wickets at 25.22. In those 13 matches no other Australian player exceeded 800 runs, and only

Graham McKenzie Graham Douglas McKenzie (born 24 June 1941) – commonly known as "Garth", after the comic strip hero – is an Australian cricketer who played for Western Australia (1960–74), Leicestershire (1969–75), Transvaal (1979–80) and Austral ...

, with 49, took more wickets. Cowper was only 27 when he played his last Test, at Headingley in 1968, almost exactly four years after his first, at Headingley in 1964. He captained Victoria to victory in the Sheffield Shield in 1969–70, then left cricket altogether to concentrate on his business career. Remarkably, he averaged an impressive 75.78 in home Tests but only 33.33 overseas. The difference of 42.45 is a Test record.

Later career

Since retiring from playing, Cowper has had a successful career in big business, and has also served as a cricket referee. In 1977 he joined the administrative board of World Series Cricket. In the 1980s he moved to Monaco. He was awarded life membership of Cricket Victoria in 2018.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowper, Bob 1940 births Living people Australia Test cricketers Victoria cricketers Western Australia cricketers People educated at Scotch College, Melbourne Australian cricketers Cricketers from Melbourne Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers People from Kew, Victoria

Cricket career

Later career

See also

References

External links