Graeme Robert Beard (born 19 August 1950) is a former Australian

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played in three

Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to: * Test cricket * Indoor cricket, Test match (indoor cricket) * Test match (rugby union) * Test match (rugby league) * Test match (associa ...

and two

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

s in 1980 and 1981.

Biography

Beard was born in the

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

suburb of Auburn. He made his debut for

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

in 1975 against the touring West Indies cricket team, playing as a batsman and scoring 0 and 0. Later that summer he scored 75 against Victoria but he was dropped from the state side on the return of test players. Beard played one first class game in 1977-78 but became a regular in the New South Wales side in the 1978–79 season as an all-rounder, bowling off- spin and medium pace. He even began to be discussed as a test player. He took five wickets in a game against Western Australia, 5–47 against Queensland, then eight wickets against Tasmania. His end of season Shield figures were 26 wickets at 26.00. Beard was overlooked for NSW side at the beginning of 1979–80 as WSC players returned. However he soon became a state regular again. Against South Australia, he took six wickets and made 68; he also took 5–33 against Queensland. Beard took 20 Shield wickets at 20.25. He was chosen in the 1979-80 Australian tour of Pakistan, replacing Ashley Mallett who was injured. (

Jim Higgs James Donald Higgs (born 11 July 1950) is a former Australian leg spinner who played in 22 Test matches between 1978 and 1981. In the words of Gideon Haigh "Jim Higgs was Australia's best legspinner between Richie Benaud and Warne. His misfort ...

was unavailable to tour.) "I'd never even thought about being selected in an Australian side", said Beard. "I only ever concentrated on keeping my place in the NSW side and I thought this season I'd possibly cemented a spot for a little while. I was happy with being able to do that, so this has been a real bonus as far as I'm concerned".

International cricketer

Beard scored 64 in the opening tour game. He played in all three

of that tour, playing a few dogged innings (39 and 49 in the 3rd Test at

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

) and took one wicket (1 for 26 in the 3rd Test). (The only Australian bowler to do well on that tour was Ray Bright.) During the 1980–81 season, Beard scored a pair of fifties in a Shield game. Bill O'Reilly suggested that Beard be chosen to replace Shaun Graf as 12th man in the test team with a view to blooding him for the 1981 English tour. However Trevor Chappell was selected instead. In 1980-81 Beard took ten wickets for New South Wales in a game against New Zealand. This led to him being named in the Australian one day side during the finals of the

World Series Cup The Australian Tri-Series was an annual one day international (ODI) cricket tournament held in Australia, and contested by Australia and two touring teams. The series was the primary format for international one-day cricket throughout most of ...

competition, replacing Shaun Graf. Beard was omitted for the first game but played in the second versus

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, taking two wickets. In the third final (Beard's second match) he took two tickets but this was overshadowed by the infamous

underarm bowling Underarm bowling is a style of bowling in cricket. The style is as old as the sport itself. Until the introduction of the roundarm style in the first half of the 19th century, bowling was performed in the same way as in the sport of bowls, wit ...

incident. Beard took 29 first class wickets at 25.24. Although he took less wickets than Bruce Yardley, Jim Higgs and Bob Holland, Beard was selected as a spinner on the Ashes tour 1981. New Zealand captain Geoff Howard warned "He'll have to be extremely accurate or he'll get punished. Graeme is only a gentle medium pace and the slow wickets over there leave no margin for error". Ian Chappell had suggested that Beard be selected on the tour if Ashley Mallett was unavailable calling Beard "a seamer-cum-spinner and... a more than useful middle order batsman" (he preferred Beard over Jim Higgs who Chappell felt would not do well in England). Brian Mossop of the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' wrote, "my tip is that while he may have been chosen to do much of the county hackwork, he will make the test team in England." Beard did not play in either the Tests or One Day Internationals on the tour. He did play a tour game against Sri Lanka taking 5-69, but Sri Lanka taking 5-69. He took 4–92 against Essex. Injuries to various bowlers saw Beard's selection floated as a possibility around the time of the fourth test but he was never picked in an international game. Beard put in some strong domestic performances in 1981-82 including a first class highest score of 75. However at the end of the season he retired from

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

, and left his job as a teacher to work for the

Australian Workers' Union The Australian Workers' Union (AWU) is one of Australia's largest and oldest trade unions. It traces its origins to unions founded in the pastoralism, pastoral and mining industries in the late 1880s and it currently has approximately 80,000 ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beard, Graeme 1950 births Living people Australia Test cricketers Australia One Day International cricketers New South Wales cricketers Australian cricketers Cricketers from Sydney 20th-century Australian sportsmen