Cricket In The '80s - Rookies, Rebels And Renaissance

This is the next installment in ABC-TV's highly successful 'Cricket History Series', focusing on the turmoil that beset Australian cricket during the decade of the 1980s. Tremors of varying intensity shook Australia's national pastime to its very foundation.

The schism caused by the World Series Cricket revolution in the late '70s, the rise and dominance of world cricket by the West Indies, the simultaneous retirements of Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh followed closely by the defection of sixteen players to play cricket in isolated aparthied South Africa in return for lucrative financial inducements saw Australian cricket slump to possibly the lowest point in its once illustrious history.

The way Australian cricket coped with this adversity, slowly recovered and eventually triumphed by the end of the decade is a tribute primarily to the character and resolve of two men, Captian and premiew batsman, Allan Border as well as Manager and Coach, Bob Simpson.