03 Dec Kerry O’Keefe
Kerry OKeeffe is a former Australian cricketer and a former commentator for Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC Radio OKeeffe played 24 Tests and 2 ODIs between 1971 and 1977 He was a spin bowler bowling leg breaks He never quite lived up to early expectations of being the next great Australian leg spin bowler taking 53 wickets at an average of 3807 He made his Test debut against England in the Fifth Test of the 1970 71 Ashes series after taking 669 and hitting 55 not out in the New South Wales match against the tourists but did little and was dropped Recalled for the vital Seventh Test on the spinning SCG pitch he took 348 and 396 but it was not enough to win the game and save The Ashes He did however have some success with the bat averaging 2576 and being called upon to open the batting in the second innings of the Centenary Test One statistic that OKeeffe himself uses to demonstrate his lack of penetration with the ball is that he is the bowler with the highest percentage of wickets out caught in the history of Test match cricket 44 out of 53 wickets 841 This is typical of his commentating style of making fun of his bowling abilities He often talks of an incident during the 1972 Australian tour of England when he appealed against a batsman for leg before wicket and the umpire turned him down saying that the ball was doing too much meaning that the ball was spinning so much that it would have turned away from the stumps OKeeffe said that the umpires comment was a sarcastic jibe at his inability to spin the ball something he likes to mock himself about