Murray Goodwin - a short biography
MAJOR TEAMS: Western Australia (1994/95-1996/97); Mashonaland A (1997/98)
John Ward
20-Sep-1999
FULL NAME: Murray William Goodwin
BORN: 11 December 1972, in Harare
MAJOR TEAMS: Western Australia (1994/95-1996/97); Mashonaland A
(1997/98).
Present club side: Alexandra
KNOWN AS: Murray Goodwin. Nicknames: 'Snapper', 'Goody', 'Muzz
the Fuzz'
BATTING STYLE: Right Hand Bat
BOWLING STYLE: Right Arm Leg Spin or Medium Pace
OCCUPATION: Professional cricketer
FIRST-CLASS DEBUT: Western Australia v England XI, at Perth, 29
October 1994.
TEST DEBUT: Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka, at Kandy, 7-11 January 1998
ODI DEBUT: Zimbabwe v Sri Lanka, at Colombo, 22 January 1998
Biography (updated September 1999)
For many years, cricket in Zimbabwe was severely handicapped by
the exodus of top players to seek their fortunes elsewhere --
Graeme Hick, Kevin Curran, Peter Rawson and Trevor Penney being
the most prominent names to be mentioned in this regard. But,
once Zimbabwe were granted Test status and began to settle into
regular international cricket, some of the exiles began to return
home. First of these, in 1997, was leg-spinner Adam Huckle,
returning from South Africa. He was soon followed by Murray
Goodwin from Western Australia.
Murray is the third of the four sons of George Goodwin, a
journalist and keen sportsman. The family lived in Zimbabwe
until 1986, when George emigrated to Australia with his wife and
two younger boys. The older sons, Murray's half-brothers Darrell
and Brian, remained in Zimbabwe and Darrell represented the
country for several years before the granting of Test status,
until business began to take priority in his life.
Murray's first cricketing memories are of playing in his back
yard at home with his parents and elder brothers. It was
inevitable, he thinks, with a family so committed to the game,
that his life was going to revolve around cricket. At the age of
seven he became a leading member of his Colts team, comprising
boys up to three years older than himself, at Groombridge Primary
School, and was also highly involved in the Eagles holiday
cricket programme in Harare, run by his father and John Ward. He
has fond memories of his successes with both bat and ball at this
level.
By the age of nine he had progressed to the school's senior team,
and before long had several centuries to his credit, at school
and in the Eagles programme. He then moved to St John's
Preparatory School in Harare, and remembers particularly scoring
143 against Highlands, which earned him his school colours. He
progressed to St John's College, a comparatively new school, and
became the first batsman to score a century for a school team
there. He was presented with the match ball immediately before
his emigration to Australia. A major highlight at that time was
his inclusion in the Zimbabwe junior Fawns squad. He considers
he was most fortunate to attend two good schools in Zimbabwe and
play a lot of schools cricket, which he was to miss in Australia.
He also remembers enjoying watching the national team in action,
players who have all retired now.
He was also a successful bowler in those days, taking many
wickets with medium-paced swingers, which he still bowls at times
at club level if tight bowling is required. He is economical but
does not usually take many wickets these days. His more regular
style, if there are runs to play with, is flighted leg-spin,
which he also employed at junior school level, but lack of
accuracy tended to make him expensive. He still tends to be
erratic, and admits he needs to practise them more. On his
first-class debut in Zimbabwe, for Mashonaland A against
Matabeleland, he bowled his medium-pacers; in the second innings
the Matabeleland batsmen Guy Whittall and Heath Streak were
getting on top of the attack when he was brought on to try to tie
up an end. He set 'a reasonably defensive field', and Guy
Whittall quickly gave a catch trying to hit over the top. He
also dismissed John Rennie, and Matabeleland were forced to play
for a draw.
In 1986, Murray, aged 13, emigrated to Australia with his
parents. Unlike Zimbabwe, there is not much cricket played there
among government schools, one of which he attended in Perth. Club
cricket is much more prominent for teenagers, and Murray soon
became involved with Bayswater-Morley. George's company soon
went bankrupt, but he found another job at a newspaper in
Bunbury, a country town about two hundred kilometres down the
coast. Murray started his schooling career there and played
Under-14 cricket. He was still receiving coaching from his
father, and was now also coached by the former England player
Jack Birkenshaw, now coach of his former county Leicestershire.
He had much to do with Murray's progress through his teenage
years, as he attended squad practices at the town club.
Before his fifteenth birthday, he was representing the Western
Australia Country Under-16 team, playing against the team from
Perth, but without success. He felt rather despondent about his
failure, but returned to Bunbury to play A Grade cricket at the
age of 16, scoring a century there at that age. This cricket
took place in the form of carnivals, or tournaments, against
other country teams, and occasionally sides from Perth. At the
age of 16, such a tournament was held in Bunbury, and the home
side played in the final against a select Perth team. Murray
captained that team, which won the match and therefore the
competition.
As a result, he was selected in the squad of 25 for the Western
Australia Under-17 team, along with two of his team-mates. But
he was the only one from any of the country teams to make the
final eleven to travel to Adelaide for the national Under-17
championships. He was disappointed to score only 6 runs in the
only two innings he played there -- two matches were rained off.
He returned to Bunbury, however, to score 143 in his next match,
batting at number three, against the top team in the A grade
competition. Among the opposition were several grown men who had
represented the adult Western Australia Country side, and this
innings rebuilt his hope and confidence in his ability.
At this stage, his batting was starting to take precedence over
his bowling. He had received advice from older players to the
effect that he should seek to concentrate on one department of
the game if he wanted to progress in the game. He enjoyed
batting more than bowling, and had always enjoyed more success at
batting except in his very early days, so this was the path he
chose, although he did not jettison his bowling entirely.
At the age of 17 he had his first taste of senior cricket in
Perth, playing for the Under-21 country team against the Perth
Under-21 team, and actually topped the batting averages. He was
recruited by the Subiaco-Floreat team, whose past greats include
players like Kim Hughes and Terry Alderman. He was thrilled at
the thought of playing in the same team as they. He began
playing in the second team, and in one match had his nose broken;
he did not have a visor on his helmet and so was out of cricket
for a week. His next match took place in the Bunbury A Grade,
and he scored 128, despite feeling rather tentative at first
about playing against short-pitched bowling again. This proved a
great boost for his flagging confidence.
He continued to play second-team cricket in Perth, scoring a
couple of fifties without being an outstanding success, before he
was promoted to the first team, for which Alderman was still
playing. He scored 32 in his first match, batting at number six,
but he failed to win promotion in the order. At one stage he was
moved down to number eight, but promptly scored a sixty, and was
reinstated. He had just turned 18, and this was immediately
before the club semi-finals, to be played at the WACA ground in
Perth. He was late for the match after some car trouble, to find
three wickets had fallen for 17 runs, and he had been due to bat
at number four! He eventually went in at six, and scored 69 out
of the team total of 184. His team lost the semi-final, but the
opposition included players with state experience. He found it
encouraging to have some of them come to him after the game with
such comments as, "Well played, youngster; I see a bright future
for you at this ground."
He then decided to spend a season playing semi-professional
cricket in England, for Streetly in Sutton Coldfield, in the
Midlands. He had a good season, scoring almost 1000 runs and
taking over 20 wickets at an average of 18. Returning to
Australia, he was selected for the state Under-19 team, and
scored two centuries in the tournament, including 140 in the
final against New South Wales at the WACA. His team was chasing
363 in 96 overs, and they succeeded with about seven overs to
spare.
This led to selection for the Australian Under-19 team, but they
had no unofficial Test matches to play: they had squad training
at the Australian Cricket Academy instead. He spent the whole of
1992 there, and was picked for the Academy's tour of South
Africa. His season developed notably towards the end, in the
company of such players as Ricky Ponting. Four of them were
invited back to the Academy the following year: Murray, Ricky,
Glenn McGrath and Warren Wishart. He enjoyed another good season
for the Academy, and was put into the first-class squad. After
scoring 150 at the WACA against the Western Australia second
team, he thought he was on the verge of first-class cricket, but
was disappointed.
It was not until the following year, 1994/95, that he made his
debut, for Western Australia against the England tourists, during
the absence of the national team players in Pakistan. He scored
91 and 77, and was primarily responsible for denying the tourists
victory. His success again boosted his confidence and
self-belief, and encouraged him to think of a full-time playing
career. However, the elation did not last long, as the rest of
the season was to prove a rather up-and-down experience.
In the next match against Tasmania, batting again at number three
because Justin Langer was in Pakistan, he tried to leg-glance a
ball down the leg side from Shane Young, only to get an edge to
the keeper, out for a single. He was furious at such a soft
dismissal, especially on such a good batting pitch. A century
from Damian Martin and 272 from Tom Moody left him feeling he had
missed out badly. He found himself dropped on the return of
Langer for the next match. He did regain his place, but
returned, to bat at number six for several matches before again
losing his place. He admits the competition for places in the
team was 'pretty cut-throat'. He finished the season with an
average of 35, which he found reasonably satisfying.
He returned to England in 1995 and enjoyed a very good season for
Guisborough, in the North Yorkshire-South Durham league, scoring
1700 runs for an average of about 89. He finished second only to
West Indian Clayton Lambert in the league batting, and felt ready
to return to Australia and cement his position in his state team.
The opening batsman Mike Veletta had departed for Canberra, and a
young player named Mike Hussey had been chosen to replace him.
The plan was that, if he failed, Murray would take his place and
open the batting. He was therefore omitted from the first match,
but Hussey enjoyed a successful season and Murray never played a
match for the state that season.
The selectors wanted him to open the batting in club cricket,
which he did. He had considerable success, but so were the
state's Sheffield Shield batsman, and he did not enjoy opening as
much as his usual position at number three or four. So he told
the state selectors that they had now seen him score a couple of
centuries and knew that he could be a success as an opening
batsman but, since they had no immediate use for him in that
position, he would return to his preferred position in club
cricket. His only sniff of first-class cricket then was when he
was made twelfth man against Tasmania; he had expected to play
because Damian Martin was at that stage averaging 14 for the
season, but the selectors decided to give Martin a final chance,
and he responded with a double-century. Thus restricted to club
cricket, Murray averaged around 65 and finished with the highest
average.
He decided against returning to England during the off-season,
but rested before 'giving it a full go' during the 1996/97
Australian season. He had another very good club season, but,
apart from a single match at New Year, did not win back his place
in the Western Australian team until February, when Justin Langer
went on tour to South Africa. Batting at number three, he
immediately celebrated with 127 and 77 (run out) against
Queensland at Perth, and came close to joining a select band to
score two centuries in a match for Western Australia. In the
Sheffield Shield final against the same opposition at the same
ground, his 63 out of 165 in the first innings saved his team
from utter rout, but failed to save the match. He finished the
season with an average of 61 from his five matches.
However, he was already moving towards the decision to return to
Zimbabwe. He had played a one-day warm-up match against the
Zimbabwe team when they toured Australia in 1994/95, scoring a
fifty, and several of the Zimbabwean players told him he should
return to the country and enjoy a career in Test cricket for his
native land. These were players he had grown up with in
Zimbabwe, and it sowed the seeds of the idea in his head. But he
was enjoying his cricket in Australia at that stage, had won a
place in the Western Australian team and was doing well. When he
was omitted during the following season, he was more open to the
idea. Other Australian states also approached him informally,
suggesting a move eastwards, but he did not commit himself. His
thoughts were rather that, if he was going to move, he might as
well return to Zimbabwe where he still had a lot of friends and
had a better chance of playing international cricket.
He began to think of this more seriously when he failed to gain
selection for Western Australia at the start of the 1996/97
season. He wrote a letter to John Traicos in Zimbabwe, saying
that if he could be offered a contract, he would be very
interested in returning to the country. Traicos replied
positively, and Murray duly arrived back in Zimbabwe at the
beginning of September 1997.
He arrived directly from Holland, where he had been player-coach
for the Excelsior 20 club, and had finished top of the league
batting averages. The highlight for him was his selection for
the Dutch national side, which played Worcestershire. While
there, he chatted to the Worcestershire coach, Zimbabwean Dave
Houghton, about his plans; Tom Moody, captain of both
Worcestershire and Western Australia, was also there, and he
urged Murray to give it a further season in Australia, but
admitted that he would not blame him if he left. But Murray
realised that if he did return to Western Australia, he would
have to bat at number six when the full side was available; at
the age of 25, he could see no immediate prospect of a Test
place, whatever his form, and when current Test players retired,
perhaps in three years' time, he would probably be too old for
first consideration. He knew that his most realistic hope of
playing international cricket, which he hopes to do for ten years
or more, was to return to Zimbabwe while he was still young
enough; every delay would make it more difficult and less likely.
Unfortunately, as he had not yet been approved officially for
residence by the Zimbabwe government, the Zimbabwe Cricket Union
did not offer him an immediate contract, although he did have a
work permit. It took several weeks for the Zimbabwean government
officially to restore his citizenship, forcing him to miss the
tour by New Zealand and the visit to Kenya for the one-day
triangular tournament.
He stayed with his brother Darrell and his family in Harare, and
joined Alexandra Sports Club. His grandfather is a life member
of the club, and Darrell is the captain and a long-standing
member of the first team. Despite other offers, he decided to
remain loyal to the family club, and enjoyed the idea of playing
in the same side as Darrell. He was immediately awarded his
favourite number three position, although he has opened for them
on a couple of occasions. He made his first-class debut in
Zimbabwe for the Mashonaland A team playing Matabeleland in
Bulawayo, and scored 78 in each innings. They were very
different knocks: in the first innings he scratched around rather
uncertainly for a while before finding his form and confidence.
In the second, however, with his team looking for a declaration,
he launched an assault on the Matabeleland bowlers, reaching his
fifty off only 29 balls and batting just 46 balls altogether for
his 78.
With the failure of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union to provide
immediately the financial support he needed, he was grateful to
have arranged for him by Andy Pycroft and Kevin James, of Crest
Breeders, a part-time job with Kevin's company. The arrangement
was for Murray to be free to play and train whenever he needed
to, but to be on call to do odd jobs for Kevin at other times.
Kevin also agreed to sponsor Murray when he started playing for
Zimbabwe. This was a vital cog in the wheel for Murray, who
might otherwise have returned to Australia rather than waste time
in Zimbabwe, without pay and waiting for the red tape to be
removed. Kevin also provided Murray with a car, another 'perk'
he had expected to be included in his contract with the Zimbabwe
Cricket Union.
Murray returned briefly to Australia in December to get married,
and returned later in the month with his bride, in time to join
the national side on tour to Sri Lanka. After a fifty in a
warm-up match, he went straight into the Test team, batting at
number three -- in effect a replacement for Dave Houghton, who
had announced his retirement a few weeks earlier. He knew it
would be no easy task to fill Houghton's shoes but was confident
that he could handle the situation. And so it proved.
His main worry was in facing Muttiah Muralitharan, and he was
uncertain that he could 'pick' him. He had faced Muralitharan
before, when the Australian Academy team visited Sri Lanka in
1993. He was not a great sweeper of the ball then, not having
played the stroke enough, but he realised he needed to be able
both to sweep and also to move down the pitch to spinners. He
names this tour as a big learning experience as he watched the
play and learned to think as the Sri Lankans thought. He backed
his own ability to beat the cunning Sri Lankan field placings,
even against the spinners. He spent much time practising the
sweep stroke, helped by Andy Flower who helped him in particular
to get his head to the ball when playing the stroke.
In the two Tests he scored two seventies, which he knows should
have been hundreds, getting out to Muralitharan once in his four
innings. The major highlight of the tour, though, was his
century in only his second one-day international. He came in
early, with Grant Flower dismissed with the total on 3, so he had
plenty of time to build an innings, which he generally does with
great care before unleashing his strokes. He went on to score
111, more than half his team's total, but it was not enough to
bring victory. He learned a lot and found a different kind of
pressure from Test cricket. Again this innings boosted his
self-belief, proving to him that he could score centuries at the
top level if he applied himself. However, he has yet to play as
well as that again in one-day cricket.
In common with the rest of the team, whose morale had been badly
damaged by the scandalous end to the Second Test in Sri Lanka
where the refusal of the umpires to answer legitimate Zimbabwean
appeals handed an undeserved victory to the home side, he found
the New Zealand tour that followed a disappointment. None of
them felt at home on the green pitches with the moving ball. He
kept making solid starts to an innings, only to get out before
building on them. Analysing his batting, he decided that he was
trying to play at the ball too early and needed to be more
selective in playing or leaving the moving ball.
Zimbabwe returned home to play Pakistan, and in the First Test a
magnificent fighting century by Grant Flower lifted the team to
put the disappointments of the tour behind them and play at a
level closer to their true form. Murray failed to score in his
first Test match at home, receiving a superb ball from Waqar
Younis that moved away and took the edge to the keeper. He felt
he should have been able to leave that ball. In the second
innings, with Zimbabwe struggling at 19 for three soon after he
arrived at the crease, he struggled against Waqar and a spell of
blistering pace bowling by Shoaib Akhtar, but hung on. His
reward was to see Waqar leave the field with an injury, and he
was able to take advantage of a weakened bowling attack, already
missing the injured Wasim Akram. After reaching his first Test
century he took the bowling apart, hitting four big sixes and
scoring a further 66 off only 43 balls before the declaration
came. It was a great help to share a large partnership with Andy
Flower, who besides being a steadying influence is a left-hander;
they kept the singles coming, rotating the strike well. Their
unbroken partnership of 277 remains a record for any Zimbabwean
wicket in Test cricket.
Two fifties in the Second Test enabled him to finish the series
with an average of exactly 100. He found the sheer pace of
Shoaib, together with his fierce bouncer, a great challenge, but
thought Wasim the hardest bowler to face, as he was unpredictably
good and the batsman could never anticipate what was coming.
Waqar he found more predictable.
After two useful innings in the unsuccessful one-day series, it
was off to India for a triangular series also including
Australia. He found his former temporary countrymen treated him
well, were complimentary towards him and he encountered no
sledging, although when he went in to bat Mark Waugh was brought
in to field close to the bat. He was facing Shane Warne; the
first ball was short of a length and he was able to hit it for
four through the covers off the back foot, and then score a two
through Mark Waugh's legs. He reached a quick and confident
fifty at almost a run a ball, but then became overconfident and
was bowled by Warne, with his team needing five and a half runs
an over. The middle order then collapsed and the team slumped to
defeat.
He found it a learning experience to watch the Indian batsmen
Tendulkar, Jadeja and Azharuddin in action, especially in the
second match against the home side when the latter two shared an
unbroken stand of 275, then a record for any wicket in one-day
internationals. The message that came across was to give nothing
away and keep it simple. Azhar told him that there was nothing
wrong with his batting; it was all in the head and he just needed
to be patient. He could make a slow beginning to an innings but
would pick it up later.
Overall, though, Murray was not too satisfied with his batting in
that tournament. Zimbabwe kept losing quick wickets in the
middle order, and he blamed himself for making forties and
fifties and then getting out. He worked on this during his 1998
league season for Guisborough, when on bowlers' pitches, where
the average team score was 120 to 140, he scored over 1000 runs
in 22 matches. With his medium pacers he also took almost 50
wickets, returning the best average in the league.
His second international season was to be less successful than
his first, especially in one-day cricket. He began with a couple
of fifties in the Commonwealth Games at Kuala Lumpur, but was out
trying to be too adventurous. Then came the tour by India, which
concluded with Zimbabwe winning only their second victory in test
cricket. Murray found the greatest challenge lay in facing
Javagal Srinath, who bowled with fire and moved the ball off the
seam. He dismissed Murray on three occasions, keeping the
pressure on him all the time, and more than once Murray lost his
wicket trying to dominate the bowling. He was learning the
lesson of being more patient in one-day cricket. In the Test
match he scored two forties, batting patiently the first time,
but in the second innings he was furious with himself for getting
out just before the close while looking for quick runs. This
precipitated a batting collapse, but in the end the match was
won.
With Neil Johnson coming into the team, Murray was moved down to
number four in the one-day side, which did not appear to suit
him. He failed in the Mini World Cup in Bangladesh and had a
'terrible time' in Sharjah, despite a fifty in the opening match
against Sri Lanka. He was dismissed by very good balls on a
couple of occasions, but in the main he put his poor form down to
faulty technique, which resulted in a loss of balance. He
corrected the fault by the time the team reached Pakistan.
In Pakistan he was restored to the number three spot for the
one-day series as Johnson was promoted to open the batting. Then
he began a long spell of scores between 10 and 30, getting
started but failing to carry it through. In the third one-day
match he survived one of Wasim Akram's most brilliant one-day
bowling spells, only to fall for 29.
The First Test against Pakistan proved a new experience for him.
He had never before seem a pitch like the one at Peshawar: very
patchy, with areas of thick grass and baldness side by side.
Zimbabwe did not know how to bowl on it, and in the Pakistan
first innings bowled far too few deliveries in the right area,
allowing them to run up 296. Johnson saved the day for Zimbabwe
with a superb century, but Murray was second highest scorer, with
only 29. Then the pace of Henry Olonga shattered the Pakistani
second innings, but Murray also pays tribute to the superb
support he received from Heath Streak and Pommie Mbangwa, who
bowled line and length, swung the ball, and the Pakistanis didn't
know which balls to leave. When Zimbabwe needed 162 to win,
Murray made sure of it with a determined 73 not out, watching the
ball patiently but taking full advantage of any loose deliveries.
He was one of Waqar's early victims in the Second Test, and this
was the end of Zimbabwe's international cricket for several
months. In March they played in a triangular series in
Bangladesh, also involving Kenya, and Murray's frustrating run of
moderate scores continued, as they did in the World Cup in
England. He eventually broke through to score a determined 57
against New Zealand in the first Super Six match, his first
one-day fifty for 18 matches. More publicised was his fine 47
against Australia at Lord's which gave Zimbabwe a temporary hope
of victory, as he shared a century partnership with Johnson. He
was over-reliant on nudges to third man, though, and when the
Australians blocked that gap he grew frustrated at being tied
down and hit a catch to deep midwicket. This began a
middle-order collapse and Zimbabwe were never again in the hunt.
Murray's highest career score in any class of cricket is 188, for
Subiaco against Wallaroo in Perth club cricket; fatigue on a hot
day, he thinks, cost him a double-century. He does not remember
the greatest number of wickets he has ever taken in an innings,
although he does remember as an eight-year-old taking six wickets
for two runs (one of which was a wide) in a school match for the
Groombridge Colts in Harare.
The three outstanding bowlers he has faced during his career, he
feels, are Shane Warne, Bruce Reid and Carl Rackemann. He
remembers playing in a club match against Reid, coming in after
losing an early wicket, and being forced to play out eight
successive maiden overs against him. Reid was bowling a perfect
line and length, the ball was moving a bit on a slightly damp
pitch and swinging both ways in the air, at a fast pace and with
considerable bounce, and Murray found him impossible to get away.
When playing the first-ever day/night Sheffield Shield match
against Queensland, Murray came up against Rackemann, bowling
with a yellow ball. In the humidity of the evening, Rackemann
was not only swinging the ball but also cutting it off the pitch
at a genuine pace, with great accuracy, and Murray found he knew
all about tough cricket. He played Shane Warne at the WACA; he
knows Warne quite well, and found he was talking to him during
his innings: "Come on, Muzz, see if you can play this ball," and
so on. He got a lot of bounce, and Murray found he could turn
his leg-spinner a couple of feet when he wanted, but on other
occasions only six inches, and all with remarkable accuracy. He
found it impossible to predict the amount of turn, much more
difficult than to spot than his flipper or googly. This
experience stood him in good stead when he faced Australia in
international cricket.