Ashley Mallett

Mallett died from cancer on 29 October 2021, at the age of 76 in Adelaide.

Mallett had little ability with the bat, with a Test best of 43* made on his debut against England, with a first class best of 92 against Western Australia. He had good reflexes and completed many difficult catches in the gully position, despite appearing to be short sighted. He captained the state team on two occasions in 1980–81, his final season.

Rain threatened to save Australia after they collapsed in pursuit of 352 on the final day. Mallett fell for a duck, the ninth wicket to fall before England took the last wicket with five minutes to spare to win by 226 runs. Mallett was to tour England three more times, in 1972, 1975 and 1980, but was never at his best there.

Returning to the Shield competition, Mallett performed consistently, with 54 and 62 wickets at an average of 19 in the 1971–72 and 1972–73 seasons allowing him a Test recall. In his earlier years, Mallett bowled with a high arm action, curving the ball away from the right-hander before breaking it inwards. He took 8/59 on his home ground in Adelaide against Pakistan in 1972–73 but missed the subsequent tour to the West Indies. Although Mallett was immediately playing Tests in the following season, reaching his 100 wicket milestone in his 23rd Test, he was subsequently used in a defensive capacity from the mid-1970s onwards. Keeping one end tight while Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee attacked the opposition with pace from the other, he only managed 32 wickets in his last 15 Tests. As the end of his career approached, he was plagued by arthritis, leading to a lower bowling action which curtailed his effectiveness. His last Test was at Lord's in 1980.

As Mallett sought to reclaim his Test spot at the start of the 1970–71 Australian season, he was in better form with the bat than the ball. In his opening first-class match of the season, against Western Australia, he made his first-class best of 92, but only totalled 2/179 in a drawn match. In the following match against Ray Illingworth's touring England team, he scored 28 but only managed an aggregate of 1/165 with the ball. Mallett then made the second and last half-century of his career, making 76 and totalling 3/25 against Victoria. In his last match before the First Test, Mallett only took 2/80 and he was not included in the national team.

Mallett took 4/40 and 2/85 in the Fourth Test at Sydney in the 1970-71 Ashes series, but Australia lost by 299 runs to go down 1–0 down and he was dropped immediately after the Test.

In Australia's 1969–70 tour to India, Mallett took 28 wickets and was an instrumental component of Australia's last Test series victory there for 35 years.

These strong performances in his debut season gained Mallett selection in the Australian team to tour England in 1968 under the captaincy of Bill Lawry. In his second match on English soil, against Northamptonshire, Mallett took his maiden ten-wicket match haul. He took 3/31 and 7/75 to set up a ten-wicket win and his victims included Hylton Ackerman, Mushtaq Mohammed and Peter Willey, Test players for South Africa, Pakistan and England respectively. In the final county match before the Tests, Mallett totalled 4/132 against Surrey. He had taken 15 wickets at 19.40 but was not selected for the First Test. Mallett remained on the Test sidelines for the next two and a half months. In that time he played in seven more first-class matches and took 22 wickets at 31.81. His most productive results were a 4/46 and 2/85 in a defeat to Glamorgan and an innings haul of 5/69 against Derbyshire. He also took a total of 5/184 against Warwickshire, removing the West Indian Test batsman Rohan Kanhai twice.

Australia came into the Fifth and final Test of 1968 with a 1–0 series lead, so the Ashes had already been retained. Mallett made his Test debut, taking the wicket of Colin Cowdrey with his fifth ball, breaching his defences and trapping him leg before wicket. He then dismissed Basil D'Oliveira for 158 and wicket-keeper Alan Knott, ending with 3/87 as the hosts made 494. Mallett then made 43 not out, helping to push Australia to 324 with some lower order runs. It was almost twice his previous best first-class score, and remained his highest Test score. He then took 2/77 in the second innings, removing Cowdrey and John Edrich.

In the second match of the 1968–69 season, Mallett took 2/30 and 3/80 in South Australia's match against the touring West Indies. He was selected for the First Test in Brisbane, but was attacked by the Caribbean tourists, taking a total of 1/88, his only wicket being Kanhai, and conceding almost five runs per over as Australia lost by 125 runs. After the defeat, Mallett was dropped. Returning to state duty, Mallett took 2/30 and 6/69 in the next match against New South Wales, helping to set up a three-wicket win. Two games later, he took 4/41 and 7/57, orchestrating an innings victory over Queensland. These efforts were not enough to win a recall to the Test team, and Mallett ended the season with 39 wickets at 23.15 as South Australia won the Sheffield Shield. He also scored 110 runs at 15.71 with a top-score of 24.

Mallett had a productive Shield career, taking 391 wickets in 91 matches, second only to Clarrie Grimmett. In tandem with Jenner, he was part of a successful era in South Australian cricket, playing in three Sheffield Shield winning sides in 1968–69, 1970–71 and 1975–76. His best bowling was 13/122 against his native state in 1971–72.

During the 1967–68 season, Mallett made his first class debut for South Australia in November against the touring New Zealand. He was wicketless from 12 overs and scored 8 not out and a duck as the tourists lost by 24 runs. Mallett took his maiden wickets in the next match against India, taking 2/55 in an innings win. His first victims were Ramakant Desai and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, both caught by his spinning partner Jenner. In the following match, he took 2/65 and 6/81, removing former Test batsman Peter Burge twice to set up a six-wicket win over Queensland, and two matches later, faced his former state for the first time. He took 2/26 in the first innings, finishing off the tail, before taking 6/75 in the second innings to complete a 95-run win. Mallett dismissed Lock in both innings.

Mallett was a member of the Western Australian squad in the 1966–67 season, but made no appearances, only being 12th man in two Sheffield Shield matches. On the bouncy pace friendly WACA Ground, where the Western Australians played their home matches, only one spinner was required, and left arm orthodox spinner Tony Lock, the former English Test player blocked Mallett's path. Along with young leg spinner Terry Jenner, Mallett transferred to South Australia in the winter of 1967, and immediately became regular members of the state team, which often fielded two spinners on the Adelaide Oval's turning surface. They were to form an effective and attacking tandem spin combination for a decade.

Ashley Alexander Mallett (13 July 1945 – 29 October 2021) was an Australian cricketer who played in 38 Tests and 9 One Day Internationals between 1968 and 1980. Until Nathan Lyon, he was Australia's most successful off spin bowler since World War II. He extracted a lot of bounce from his high arm action, coupled with his height.