Doug Ring
Encyclopedia
Douglas Thomas Ring was an Australia
n cricket
er who played for Victoria
and Australia in 13 Tests
from 1948 to 1953. In 129 first-class cricket
matches, he took 426 wicket
s bowling leg spin
, and he had a top score of 145 runs
, which was the only century
of his career.
Ring made his Test debut against India in the 1947–48 season and was picked for Australia's tour of England in 1948, the so-called "Invincibles" side, but played in only one Test match on the tour. He had greater success against West Indies in 1951–52, and South Africa the following season and made a second less successful tour of England in 1953. Following cricket, Ring held positions in industry administration in Victoria, and became a cricket radio commentator and later host of Australia's World of Sport
.
as a child, and attended Melbourne High School
. After playing schoolboy cricket, he played the final matches of the 1935–36 season with the first grade side at Prahran
. He batted right-handed and bowled right-arm leg breaks
. He topped the Victorian Cricket Association's
second-grade bowling averages and joined the Richmond
first grade team.
, bowling alongside Chuck Fleetwood-Smith
. In the following game, batting at No 9
, he put on 112 for the eighth wicket with Lindsay Hassett
, making 51 runs himself. He did not appear in Victoria's other Sheffield Shield matches that 1938–39 season, but later, playing against Western Australia in Perth in a first-class non-Shield match – Western Australia did not join the Sheffield Shield until after the Second World War
– he took six wickets for 97 runs in Western Australia's first innings.
In the 1939–40 season, Ring played in all of Victoria's Sheffield Shield matches, and though he did not improve on either his best bowling or best batting figures, he took over as the side's principal spin bowler from Fleetwood-Smith, with 28 wickets in the six matches against the senior player's 17. At the end of the season, he was picked for "The Rest" team, composed of the best players from the other states, for the match against the Shield winners, New South Wales, though he was upstaged by the 48-year-old Clarrie Grimmett
, who took 10 wickets to Ring's one in the match. Wisden
noted in a brief report on the 1939–40 Sheffield Shield in its 1940 edition that Bill O'Reilly
, Grimmett and Ring "carried off chief bowling honours in the competition". Prior to the Second World War, the Australian captain
Don Bradman said of Ring: "If I were picking an Australian XI to go to England now, one of the first men on my list would be Doug Ring".
In the first-class season of 1940–41, with the proposed England
tour and the Sheffield Shield competition both cancelled because of the war, Ring played half a dozen first-class matches for Victoria, achieving little with his bowling, but making 72 when promoted to No 3 batsman as a nightwatchman
against South Australia at Adelaide
and following that up with 60 against Queensland at Brisbane.
The war then interrupted Ring's first-class career. Ring joined the Australian Army
and served with an anti-aircraft regiment in New Guinea
. During his military service he injured his back, displacing a disc
. The injury flared up from time to time, especially in cold weather, and this affected his ability to bowl to a consistent length.
that made such an impact in England. He resumed his state cricket career in 1946–47, and made the only century
of his career, 145, against Queensland
at Melbourne
, sharing a sixth wicket partnership
of 288 runs with Sam Loxton
, who made 232. The batting success was offset by less effective bowling: he took just 18 Sheffield Shield wickets, barely half the number (33) achieved by Victoria's left-arm spinner George Tribe
, who was picked for three Tests against England
that season, but then turned his back on Australian cricket and moved to England.
Victoria in the 1947–48 season was a weak team and finished bottom of the Sheffield Shield table. Ring took 23 wickets, the highest of any Victoria bowler, in Shield matches but at the high average of 33 runs apiece. His best bowling of the season came in a match against Tasmania where he improved his career-best bowling figures by taking six for 84 in the first innings and followed that with five for 59 in the second innings for his first 10-wicket match haul (11-143).
It was a good time to make an eye-catching performance: the next match at the MCG was the fifth and final Test against India
and Ring was selected, replacing Colin McCool
, who had taken only four wickets in three matches of the five-Test series, and making his Test debut. After Australia made 575 for eight declared, with Ring making 11 when batting at No 10, Ring bowled 36 eight-ball overs, taking three for 103 as India reached 331, and then took three further wickets for just 17 in a second-innings capitulation for just 67. With match figures of six for 120 in his first game, Ring was picked for the 1948 tour of England, the tour led by Donald Bradman that became known, through its unbeaten record, as "The Invincibles".
Though the 1948 tour of England was a triumph for the Australians, Ring was not prominent in the success. The faster bowlers, headed by Ray Lindwall
and Keith Miller
, dominated the bowling attack, and with a new ball allowed after just 55 overs of play, spin bowlers made little impact in the big matches. Ring, said Wisden in its summary of the tour, "was never a trump card in the pack". Such was the strength of the Australian bowling that Ring's 60 first-class wickets at an average of 21.81 on the tour was the highest bowling average
of the regular bowlers. The strength of the batting side also meant that he batted only 14 times in his 19 first-class matches on the tour, and he passed 50 only once. He played in one Test match—the last of the five-match series, at The Oval
. He did not bowl in the first innings as England were dismissed for just 52, and took one wicket—that of Allan Watkins
—in 28 economical overs in the second innings as Bradman's final Test ended in an innings victory.
Ring and fellow fringe members of the squad, Ron Hamence
and Colin McCool
, would refer themselves as the "ground-staff" as it was unlikely that the tour selectors would include them in the Test team on the 1948 tour.
Over the next three Australian seasons, Ring played regularly for Victoria and appeared also in some lesser representative matches. He figured in both the Donald Bradman Testimonial Match and the Alan Kippax
-Bert Oldfield
Testimonial, which were the big set-piece matches of the 1948–49 season, the latter being used as a "Test trial" for the 1949–50 tour of South Africa, for which Ring was not picked. Instead, in early 1950 he went on a non-Test playing tour of New Zealand where, in the three-day match between New Zealand
and the touring side, he took seven for 88 in the home side's first innings, which remained the best figures of his first-class career. By the 1950–51 season, when Ring had one of his worst batting but better bowling seasons for Victoria, he had been overtaken in the Test match pecking order by his Victoria team-mate, Jack Iverson
, whose quirky all-sorts of spin bowling was used in all five Tests.
arrived for their 1951–52 tour
in November 1951 in what was billed as a "cricket championship of the world", the Australian Test selectors turned to Ring for the spin option to the pace of Lindwall, Miller and Bill Johnston
for the first match at Brisbane. With the famous spin twins of Sonny Ramadhin
and Alf Valentine
in the opposition, Ring was the least experienced main line bowler at this level on either side – but he proved to be the matchwinner. Having taken two wickets in West Indies' first innings, he took six for 80 runs in the second, and his dismissal of Frank Worrell
and captain John Goddard with the last two balls of the second day swung the advantage towards Australia. In the second innings, Wisden reported, West Indies' batsmen were "guilty of rash strokes against the high-flighted leg-breaks of Ring, whose bowling contained abundant guile". Ring was also at the wicket when the match was won, by three wickets, though his own contribution was just six runs.
Ring's main contribution to the second Test, at Sydney
, which Australia won by seven wickets, came with bat rather than ball. He took only one wicket in a match made controversial by liberal use of the bumper
by the faster Australian bowlers. But batting at No 9 and joining Lindwall at 372 for seven, just 10 ahead of the West Indies' first innings total, his 65 in 102 minutes helped add 113 before he was ninth out.
In the third Test, too, Ring's batting made more impact than his bowling. A wet pitch led to 22 wickets falling on the first day, and temporary Australian captain Arthur Morris
rejigged his batting order at the end of the day, opening the second innings with Ian Johnson
and Gil Langley
, sending Geff Noblet
in when Johnson was out and then Ring as a second nightwatchman
when Noblet was out. Ring lasted into the second day when conditions were easier, and top-scored for the Australian team with 67, which remained his best score in Tests. He took three of the four wickets that fell as West Indies successfully chased a target of 233 on Christmas Day.
It was the fourth Test at Melbourne that cemented Ring's place as part of Australian cricket folklore. Again, his bowling was little used, and he failed to take a wicket. But his batting this time proved decisive. Chasing 260 to win, Australia had reached 218 for seven when Ring came in at No 9. Century-maker Lindsay Hassett
departed with no further runs added, and Langley was out at 222, so when last batsman Bill Johnston joined Ring, 38 were still needed to win. In Wisden's words, "no one regards Johnston as other than a 'rabbit' with the bat". But the West Indies pushed the fielders in nearer the bat, allowing Ring to reach the boundary by clearing the fielders. Wisden reported: "Johnston played a comparatively passive role while Ring hit vigorously, gaining a series of boundaries by lofty drives which may have resulted in catches had the field been set deep enough for this known hitter." Ring made an unbeaten 32, and "earned most of the credit", Wisden said, though Johnston hit the winning run, which also won the series for Australia.
The fifth Test, which saw the debut of Richie Benaud
alongside Ring, was an anticlimax, and Ring contributed little with either bat or ball to a large Australian victory. In the series as a whole, among the regular players, Ring finished behind only Hassett and Miller as a batsman, with 197 runs at an average of 28.14, and he took 13 wickets for exactly 30 apiece.
In 1952–53, the South Africans
were the visitors to Australia, and Ring got an early sight of the team by captaining Victoria against them, top-scoring in the state's first innings with 56. In the first Test at Brisbane, he repeated his performance of a year earlier by taking six wickets, this time for 72 runs, his best Test bowling performance, in South Africa's first innings. The South Africans "survived Australia's pace bowling well enough, but few met the leg-breaks of Ring with assurance," Wisden reported. "His varied flight and pace worried batsmen attempting too often to play him from the crease." He was unsuccessful in South Africa's second innings.
Across the rest of the five-match Test series against South Africa, Ring took only seven more wickets, and he tended to be expensive in terms of the number of runs conceded from his bowling. In the second match, which the South Africans won, he took three wickets for 187, and, batting at No 10, contributed a quick-fire 53 out of the last 74 runs when the match had already effectively been lost. Two weeks later, in the third match, he took just one wicket in a crushing Australian victory, but contributed 58 out of 75 in just 68 minutes from the unusually lofty batting position of No 8. The fourth and fifth Tests brought him few runs or wickets. In the series as a whole, Ring scored 184 runs at an average of 23 runs per innings and took 13 wickets at the high average of 48.
As a proven Test player and the senior spin bowler, Ring was chosen for his second tour of England in 1953, this time under the captaincy of Hassett. It proved not much happier than his 1948 experience, though in a less strong side his eventual wicket tally, 68 first-class wickets at an average of 19.89, placed him third among the regular bowlers.
Ring was, though, just one of three leg-spin bowlers, alongside Benaud and Ring's Victoria colleague Jack Hill
, and, said Wisden, "none of the three ... was seen to advantage in the Tests". Indeed, Wisden added, "there was an appreciable weakness due to the absence of top-class spin to support the thrust of Lindwall, Miller and Johnston".
In the event, Ring played in only one Test, the second of the five-match series, played at Lord's
. He took two wickets, the same number as Benaud, on a pitch allegedly susceptible to spin and scored 18 and 7 as the match ended in a tight draw.
Outside the Tests in England, Ring took five wickets in an innings five times and, though mostly fairly ineffective with the bat, hit 88 against Lancashire
, his second highest first-class score. At the end of the England tour, he retired from both first-class and Test cricket.
from 1946 to 1982 where his supervisor was Les Menzies, brother of Australian Prime Minister
Robert Menzies
. In 1958, he entered the media as a cricket commentator on Melbourne radio station 3DB. In 1961, he moved to television where he was a popular presenter of the HSV-7
program World of Sport
. Ring had three children with his wife Lesley. He died in Melbourne on 23 June 2003.
however his habit playing the ball in the air prevented him from scoring more runs. Ring never brought himself a bat, choosing to rely on a bat he borrowed from the Victorian Cricket Association
practice kit.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er who played for Victoria
Victorian Bushrangers
The Victorian cricket team, nicknamed the Bushrangers, is an Australian cricket team based in Melbourne, that represents the state of Victoria. It is administered by Cricket Victoria and draws its players from Melbourne's Premier Cricket competition...
and Australia in 13 Tests
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...
from 1948 to 1953. In 129 first-class cricket
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
matches, he took 426 wicket
Wicket
In the sport of cricket the word wicket has several distinct meanings:-Definitions of wicket:Most of the time, the wicket is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch...
s bowling leg spin
Leg spin
Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in the sport of cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action, causing the ball to spin from right to left in the cricket pitch, at the point of delivery. When the ball bounces, the spin causes the ball to deviate sharply from right to left, that...
, and he had a top score of 145 runs
Run (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a run is the basic unit of scoring. Runs are scored by a batsman, and the aggregate of the scores of a team's batsmen constitutes the team's score. A batsman scoring 50 or 100 runs , or any higher multiple of 50 runs, is considered a particular achievement...
, which was the only century
Century (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a batsman reaches his century when he scores 100 or more runs in a single innings. The term is also included in "century partnership" which occurs when two batsmen add 100 runs to the team total when they are batting together. A century is regarded as a landmark score for...
of his career.
Ring made his Test debut against India in the 1947–48 season and was picked for Australia's tour of England in 1948, the so-called "Invincibles" side, but played in only one Test match on the tour. He had greater success against West Indies in 1951–52, and South Africa the following season and made a second less successful tour of England in 1953. Following cricket, Ring held positions in industry administration in Victoria, and became a cricket radio commentator and later host of Australia's World of Sport
World of Sport (Australian TV series)
World of Sport was an Australian sports program that was broadcast live by HSV 7 in Melbourne from 1959 to 1987 on Sundays between 11am and 2pm...
.
Early years and cricket career
Born in Hobart, Ring moved to VictoriaVictoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
as a child, and attended Melbourne High School
Melbourne High School
Melbourne High School is a selective entry state school for boys in years 9 to 12 located in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra. Being a selective school, it is known mainly for its strong academic reputation...
. After playing schoolboy cricket, he played the final matches of the 1935–36 season with the first grade side at Prahran
Prahran Cricket Club
The Prahran Cricket Club is an Australian cricket club based in Prahran, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. They play in Victorian Premier Cricket, the highest competition in the state.-External links:*...
. He batted right-handed and bowled right-arm leg breaks
Leg spin
Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in the sport of cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action, causing the ball to spin from right to left in the cricket pitch, at the point of delivery. When the ball bounces, the spin causes the ball to deviate sharply from right to left, that...
. He topped the Victorian Cricket Association's
Victorian Premier Cricket
Victorian Premier Cricket is the elite club cricket competition in the state of Victoria, administered by Cricket Victoria. Each club fields four teams of adult players and usually play on weekends and public holidays. Matches are played on turf wickets under limited-time rules, with most results...
second-grade bowling averages and joined the Richmond
Richmond Cricket Club
This article concerns the Richmond club in Australia. For the English club of the same name, see Richmond Cricket Club, SurreyThe Richmond Cricket Club is an Australian cricket club based in Richmond, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria....
first grade team.
First-class cricket
In 1938, after five matches with Richmond, he was selected for Victoria. In his first match, in December 1938, he took four New South Wales wickets, including Sid BarnesSid Barnes
Sidney George Barnes was an Australian cricketer and cricket writer, who played 13 Test matches between 1938 and 1948. Able to open the innings or bat down the order, Barnes was regarded as one of Australia's finest batsmen in the period immediately following the Second World War...
, bowling alongside Chuck Fleetwood-Smith
Chuck Fleetwood-Smith
Leslie O'Brien "Chuck" Fleetwood-Smith was a cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. Known universally as "Chuck", he was the "wayward genius" of Australian cricket during the 1930s...
. In the following game, batting at No 9
Batting order (cricket)
In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batsmen play through their team's innings, there always being two batsmen taking part at any one time...
, he put on 112 for the eighth wicket with Lindsay Hassett
Lindsay Hassett
Arthur Lindsay Hassett MBE was a cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. The diminutive Hassett was an elegant middle-order batsman, described by Wisden as, "... a master of nearly every stroke ... his superb timing, nimble footwork and strong wrists enabled him to make batting look a...
, making 51 runs himself. He did not appear in Victoria's other Sheffield Shield matches that 1938–39 season, but later, playing against Western Australia in Perth in a first-class non-Shield match – Western Australia did not join the Sheffield Shield until after the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
– he took six wickets for 97 runs in Western Australia's first innings.
In the 1939–40 season, Ring played in all of Victoria's Sheffield Shield matches, and though he did not improve on either his best bowling or best batting figures, he took over as the side's principal spin bowler from Fleetwood-Smith, with 28 wickets in the six matches against the senior player's 17. At the end of the season, he was picked for "The Rest" team, composed of the best players from the other states, for the match against the Shield winners, New South Wales, though he was upstaged by the 48-year-old Clarrie Grimmett
Clarrie Grimmett
Clarence Victor "Clarrie" Grimmett was a cricketer; although born in New Zealand, he played most of his cricket in Australia. He is thought by many to be one of the finest early spin bowlers, and usually credited as the developer of the flipper.Grimmett was born in Caversham a suburb of Dunedin,...
, who took 10 wickets to Ring's one in the match. Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
noted in a brief report on the 1939–40 Sheffield Shield in its 1940 edition that Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (cricketer)
William Joseph "Bill" O'Reilly , often known as Tiger O'Reilly, was an Australian cricketer, rated as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. Following his retirement from playing, he became a well-respected cricket writer and broadcaster.O'Reilly was one of the best spin bowlers to...
, Grimmett and Ring "carried off chief bowling honours in the competition". Prior to the Second World War, the Australian captain
Captain (cricket)
The captain of a cricket team often referred to as the skipper is the appointed leader, having several additional roles and responsibilities over and above those of a regular player...
Don Bradman said of Ring: "If I were picking an Australian XI to go to England now, one of the first men on my list would be Doug Ring".
In the first-class season of 1940–41, with the proposed England
English cricket team
The England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...
tour and the Sheffield Shield competition both cancelled because of the war, Ring played half a dozen first-class matches for Victoria, achieving little with his bowling, but making 72 when promoted to No 3 batsman as a nightwatchman
Nightwatchman (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a nightwatchman is a lower-order batsman who comes in to bat higher up the order than usual near the end of the day's play...
against South Australia at Adelaide
Adelaide Oval
The Adelaide Oval is a sports ground in Adelaide, South Australia, located in the parklands between the Central Business District and North Adelaide...
and following that up with 60 against Queensland at Brisbane.
The war then interrupted Ring's first-class career. Ring joined the Australian Army
Australian Army
The Australian Army is Australia's military land force. It is part of the Australian Defence Force along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. While the Chief of Defence commands the Australian Defence Force , the Army is commanded by the Chief of Army...
and served with an anti-aircraft regiment in New Guinea
New Guinea campaign
The New Guinea campaign was one of the major military campaigns of World War II.Before the war, the island of New Guinea was split between:...
. During his military service he injured his back, displacing a disc
Intervertebral disc
Intervertebral discs lie between adjacent vertebrae in the spine. Each disc forms a cartilaginous joint to allow slight movement of the vertebrae, and acts as a ligament to hold the vertebrae together.-Structure:...
. The injury flared up from time to time, especially in cold weather, and this affected his ability to bowl to a consistent length.
Post-war career
Ring's war service in the Far East meant that he did not appear in the Australian Services XIAustralian Services cricket team
The Australian Services XI was a cricket team comprising solely military service personnel during World War II. They became active in May 1945 after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The team played matches against English cricket sides of both military and civilian origins to celebrate the end of the war...
that made such an impact in England. He resumed his state cricket career in 1946–47, and made the only century
Century (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a batsman reaches his century when he scores 100 or more runs in a single innings. The term is also included in "century partnership" which occurs when two batsmen add 100 runs to the team total when they are batting together. A century is regarded as a landmark score for...
of his career, 145, against Queensland
Queensland Bulls
The Queensland cricket team, nicknamed the Bulls, are the Brisbane-based Queensland representative cricket team in Australia's domestic cricket tournaments:*Sheffield Shield, 4-day matches with first-class status, since the 1926/27 season...
at Melbourne
Melbourne Cricket Ground
The Melbourne Cricket Ground is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne and is home to the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is the tenth largest stadium in the world, the largest in Australia, the largest stadium for playing cricket, and holds the world record for the highest light...
, sharing a sixth wicket partnership
Partnership (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, two batsmen always bat in partnership, although only one is on strike at any time. The partnership between two batsmen will come to an end when one of them is dismissed or retires, or the innings comes to a close In the sport of cricket, two batsmen always bat in...
of 288 runs with Sam Loxton
Sam Loxton
Samuel John Everett "Sam" Loxton OBE is a former Australian cricketer, footballer and politician. Among these three pursuits, his greatest achievements were attained on the cricket field; he played in 12 Tests for Australia from 1948 to 1951...
, who made 232. The batting success was offset by less effective bowling: he took just 18 Sheffield Shield wickets, barely half the number (33) achieved by Victoria's left-arm spinner George Tribe
George Tribe
George Edward Tribe was an Australian cricketer who played in 3 Tests from 1946 to 1947, as well as an Australian rules footballer with the Footscray Football Club in the VFL....
, who was picked for three Tests against England
English cricket team in Australia in 1946-47
The English cricket team in Australia in 1946–47 was captained by Wally Hammond, with Norman Yardley as his vice-captain and Bill Edrich as the senior professional. It played as England in the 1946-47 Ashes series against the Australians and as the MCC in their other matches on the tour...
that season, but then turned his back on Australian cricket and moved to England.
Victoria in the 1947–48 season was a weak team and finished bottom of the Sheffield Shield table. Ring took 23 wickets, the highest of any Victoria bowler, in Shield matches but at the high average of 33 runs apiece. His best bowling of the season came in a match against Tasmania where he improved his career-best bowling figures by taking six for 84 in the first innings and followed that with five for 59 in the second innings for his first 10-wicket match haul (11-143).
Test debut
Indian cricket team
The Indian cricket team is the national cricket team of India. Governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India , it is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and One Day International status....
and Ring was selected, replacing Colin McCool
Colin McCool
Colin Leslie McCool was an Australian cricketer who played in 14 Tests from 1946 to 1950. McCool, born in Paddington, New South Wales, was an all-rounder who bowled leg spin and googlies with a round arm action and as a lower order batsman was regarded as effective square of the wicket and against...
, who had taken only four wickets in three matches of the five-Test series, and making his Test debut. After Australia made 575 for eight declared, with Ring making 11 when batting at No 10, Ring bowled 36 eight-ball overs, taking three for 103 as India reached 331, and then took three further wickets for just 17 in a second-innings capitulation for just 67. With match figures of six for 120 in his first game, Ring was picked for the 1948 tour of England, the tour led by Donald Bradman that became known, through its unbeaten record, as "The Invincibles".
Though the 1948 tour of England was a triumph for the Australians, Ring was not prominent in the success. The faster bowlers, headed by Ray Lindwall
Ray Lindwall
Raymond Russell Lindwall MBE was a cricketer who represented Australia in 61 Tests from 1946 to 1960. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. He also played top-flight rugby league football with St...
and Keith Miller
Keith Miller
Keith Ross Miller MBE was an Australian Test cricketer and a Royal Australian Air Force pilot during World War II. Miller is widely regarded as Australia's greatest ever all-rounder. Because of his ability, irreverent manner and good looks he was a crowd favourite...
, dominated the bowling attack, and with a new ball allowed after just 55 overs of play, spin bowlers made little impact in the big matches. Ring, said Wisden in its summary of the tour, "was never a trump card in the pack". Such was the strength of the Australian bowling that Ring's 60 first-class wickets at an average of 21.81 on the tour was the highest bowling average
Bowling average
Bowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...
of the regular bowlers. The strength of the batting side also meant that he batted only 14 times in his 19 first-class matches on the tour, and he passed 50 only once. He played in one Test match—the last of the five-match series, at The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...
. He did not bowl in the first innings as England were dismissed for just 52, and took one wicket—that of Allan Watkins
Allan Watkins
Allan Watkins Allan Watkins Allan Watkins (born Albert John Watkins (21 April 1922 – 3 August 2011) was a Welsh cricketer, who played for England in fifteen Tests from 1948 to 1952. He toured India and Pakistan in 1951-2 with the MCC, and also participated in the 1955-6 'A' Tour to Pakistan...
—in 28 economical overs in the second innings as Bradman's final Test ended in an innings victory.
Ring and fellow fringe members of the squad, Ron Hamence
Ron Hamence
Ronald Arthur Hamence was a cricketer who played for South Australia and Australia. A short and compact right-handed batsman, Hamence excelled in getting forward to drive and had an array of attractive back foot strokes...
and Colin McCool
Colin McCool
Colin Leslie McCool was an Australian cricketer who played in 14 Tests from 1946 to 1950. McCool, born in Paddington, New South Wales, was an all-rounder who bowled leg spin and googlies with a round arm action and as a lower order batsman was regarded as effective square of the wicket and against...
, would refer themselves as the "ground-staff" as it was unlikely that the tour selectors would include them in the Test team on the 1948 tour.
Over the next three Australian seasons, Ring played regularly for Victoria and appeared also in some lesser representative matches. He figured in both the Donald Bradman Testimonial Match and the Alan Kippax
Alan Kippax
Alan Falconer Kippax was a cricketer for New South Wales and Australia. Regarded as one of the great stylists of Australian cricket during the era between the two World Wars, Kippax overcame a late start to Test cricket to become a regular in the Australian team between the 1928–29 and...
-Bert Oldfield
Bert Oldfield
William Albert Stanley "Bert" Oldfield was an Australian cricket player. He played for New South Wales and the Australian cricket team as wicket-keeper....
Testimonial, which were the big set-piece matches of the 1948–49 season, the latter being used as a "Test trial" for the 1949–50 tour of South Africa, for which Ring was not picked. Instead, in early 1950 he went on a non-Test playing tour of New Zealand where, in the three-day match between New Zealand
New Zealand cricket team
The New Zealand cricket team, nicknamed the Black Caps, are the national cricket team representing New Zealand. They played their first in 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. It took the team until 1955–56 to win a Test, against the...
and the touring side, he took seven for 88 in the home side's first innings, which remained the best figures of his first-class career. By the 1950–51 season, when Ring had one of his worst batting but better bowling seasons for Victoria, he had been overtaken in the Test match pecking order by his Victoria team-mate, Jack Iverson
Jack Iverson
John Brian Iverson was an Australian cricketer who played in 5 Tests from 1950 to 1951. He was known for his unique "bent finger" grip, with which he briefly perplexed batsmen across Australia as well as the touring English cricket team...
, whose quirky all-sorts of spin bowling was used in all five Tests.
Test regular
Iverson's career turned out to be meteoric on the downward trajectory as well as the upward, and when the West IndiesWest Indian cricket team
The West Indian cricket team, also known colloquially as the West Indies or the Windies, is a multi-national cricket team representing a sporting confederation of 15 mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries, British dependencies and non-British dependencies.From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s,...
arrived for their 1951–52 tour
West Indian cricket team in Australia in 1951-52
The West Indies cricket team toured Australia in the 1951-52 season and played five Test matches against Australia. The series was billed as the "World Championship of cricket", with both teams having beaten England in the previous 18 months...
in November 1951 in what was billed as a "cricket championship of the world", the Australian Test selectors turned to Ring for the spin option to the pace of Lindwall, Miller and Bill Johnston
Bill Johnston
William "Little Bill" Johnston was an American tennis champion. He was the co-World No. 1 player in 1919 and in 1922 respectively along with Gerald Patterson and Bill Tilden. He won the U.S...
for the first match at Brisbane. With the famous spin twins of Sonny Ramadhin
Sonny Ramadhin
Sonny Ramadhin was a West Indian cricketer, and a dominant bowler of the 1950s. He was the first West Indian cricketers of Indian origin, and was one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1951.- Biography and career :...
and Alf Valentine
Alf Valentine
Alfred Louis Valentine, April 28, 1930–11 May 2004 , was a West Indian cricketer in the 1950s and 1960s. He is most famous for his performance in the West Indies' 1950 tour of England, which was immortalised in the Victory Calypso.-The 1950 tour:...
in the opposition, Ring was the least experienced main line bowler at this level on either side – but he proved to be the matchwinner. Having taken two wickets in West Indies' first innings, he took six for 80 runs in the second, and his dismissal of Frank Worrell
Frank Worrell
Sir Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell is sometimes referred to by his nickname of Tae and was a West Indies cricketer and Jamaican senator...
and captain John Goddard with the last two balls of the second day swung the advantage towards Australia. In the second innings, Wisden reported, West Indies' batsmen were "guilty of rash strokes against the high-flighted leg-breaks of Ring, whose bowling contained abundant guile". Ring was also at the wicket when the match was won, by three wickets, though his own contribution was just six runs.
Ring's main contribution to the second Test, at Sydney
Sydney Cricket Ground
The Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...
, which Australia won by seven wickets, came with bat rather than ball. He took only one wicket in a match made controversial by liberal use of the bumper
Bouncer (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a bouncer is a type of delivery, usually bowled by a fast bowler. It is pitched short so that it bounces on the pitch well short of the batsman and rears up to chest or head height as it reaches the batsman.Bouncers are used tactically to drive the batsman back on to his...
by the faster Australian bowlers. But batting at No 9 and joining Lindwall at 372 for seven, just 10 ahead of the West Indies' first innings total, his 65 in 102 minutes helped add 113 before he was ninth out.
In the third Test, too, Ring's batting made more impact than his bowling. A wet pitch led to 22 wickets falling on the first day, and temporary Australian captain Arthur Morris
Arthur Morris
Arthur Robert Morris MBE is a former Australian cricketer who played 46 Test matches between 1946 and 1955. An opener, Morris is regarded as one of Australia's greatest left-handed batsmen. He is best known for his key role in Don Bradman's Invincibles side, which made an undefeated tour of...
rejigged his batting order at the end of the day, opening the second innings with Ian Johnson
Ian Johnson (cricketer)
Ian William Geddes Johnson CBE was an Australian cricketer who played 45 Test matches as a slow off-break bowler between 1946 and 1956. Johnson captured 109 Test wickets at an average of 29.19 runs per wicket and as a lower order batsman made 1,000 runs at an average of...
and Gil Langley
Gil Langley
Gilbert Roche Andrews "Gil" Langley was an Australian Test cricketer, champion Australian rules footballer and member of parliament, serving as Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly....
, sending Geff Noblet
Geff Noblet
Geffery Noblet was an Australian cricketer who played in 3 Tests from 1950 to 1953....
in when Johnson was out and then Ring as a second nightwatchman
Nightwatchman (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a nightwatchman is a lower-order batsman who comes in to bat higher up the order than usual near the end of the day's play...
when Noblet was out. Ring lasted into the second day when conditions were easier, and top-scored for the Australian team with 67, which remained his best score in Tests. He took three of the four wickets that fell as West Indies successfully chased a target of 233 on Christmas Day.
Lindsay Hassett
Arthur Lindsay Hassett MBE was a cricketer who played for Victoria and Australia. The diminutive Hassett was an elegant middle-order batsman, described by Wisden as, "... a master of nearly every stroke ... his superb timing, nimble footwork and strong wrists enabled him to make batting look a...
departed with no further runs added, and Langley was out at 222, so when last batsman Bill Johnston joined Ring, 38 were still needed to win. In Wisden's words, "no one regards Johnston as other than a 'rabbit' with the bat". But the West Indies pushed the fielders in nearer the bat, allowing Ring to reach the boundary by clearing the fielders. Wisden reported: "Johnston played a comparatively passive role while Ring hit vigorously, gaining a series of boundaries by lofty drives which may have resulted in catches had the field been set deep enough for this known hitter." Ring made an unbeaten 32, and "earned most of the credit", Wisden said, though Johnston hit the winning run, which also won the series for Australia.
The fifth Test, which saw the debut of Richie Benaud
Richie Benaud
Richard "Richie" Benaud OBE is a former Australian cricketer who, since his retirement from international cricket in 1964, has become a highly regarded commentator on the game....
alongside Ring, was an anticlimax, and Ring contributed little with either bat or ball to a large Australian victory. In the series as a whole, among the regular players, Ring finished behind only Hassett and Miller as a batsman, with 197 runs at an average of 28.14, and he took 13 wickets for exactly 30 apiece.
In 1952–53, the South Africans
South African cricket team
The South African national cricket team represent South Africa in international cricket. They are administrated by Cricket South Africa.South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council, also known as ICC, with Test and One Day International, or ODI, status...
were the visitors to Australia, and Ring got an early sight of the team by captaining Victoria against them, top-scoring in the state's first innings with 56. In the first Test at Brisbane, he repeated his performance of a year earlier by taking six wickets, this time for 72 runs, his best Test bowling performance, in South Africa's first innings. The South Africans "survived Australia's pace bowling well enough, but few met the leg-breaks of Ring with assurance," Wisden reported. "His varied flight and pace worried batsmen attempting too often to play him from the crease." He was unsuccessful in South Africa's second innings.
Across the rest of the five-match Test series against South Africa, Ring took only seven more wickets, and he tended to be expensive in terms of the number of runs conceded from his bowling. In the second match, which the South Africans won, he took three wickets for 187, and, batting at No 10, contributed a quick-fire 53 out of the last 74 runs when the match had already effectively been lost. Two weeks later, in the third match, he took just one wicket in a crushing Australian victory, but contributed 58 out of 75 in just 68 minutes from the unusually lofty batting position of No 8. The fourth and fifth Tests brought him few runs or wickets. In the series as a whole, Ring scored 184 runs at an average of 23 runs per innings and took 13 wickets at the high average of 48.
As a proven Test player and the senior spin bowler, Ring was chosen for his second tour of England in 1953, this time under the captaincy of Hassett. It proved not much happier than his 1948 experience, though in a less strong side his eventual wicket tally, 68 first-class wickets at an average of 19.89, placed him third among the regular bowlers.
Ring was, though, just one of three leg-spin bowlers, alongside Benaud and Ring's Victoria colleague Jack Hill
Jack Hill
Jack Hill is an U.S. film director, noted for his work in the exploitation film genre. Despite this, several of Hill's later films have been characterized as feminist works.Hill was born in Los Angeles...
, and, said Wisden, "none of the three ... was seen to advantage in the Tests". Indeed, Wisden added, "there was an appreciable weakness due to the absence of top-class spin to support the thrust of Lindwall, Miller and Johnston".
In the event, Ring played in only one Test, the second of the five-match series, played at Lord's
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
. He took two wickets, the same number as Benaud, on a pitch allegedly susceptible to spin and scored 18 and 7 as the match ended in a tight draw.
Outside the Tests in England, Ring took five wickets in an innings five times and, though mostly fairly ineffective with the bat, hit 88 against Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...
, his second highest first-class score. At the end of the England tour, he retired from both first-class and Test cricket.
Later career
Outside cricket, Ring was employed by the Victorian Department of Primary IndustriesDepartment of Primary Industries (Victoria)
The Department of Primary Industries is the central Government agency responsible for agriculture, biosecurity, fisheries, earth resources, energy and forestry policy and programs in the State of Victoria, Australia....
from 1946 to 1982 where his supervisor was Les Menzies, brother of Australian Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Australia
The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
Robert Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
. In 1958, he entered the media as a cricket commentator on Melbourne radio station 3DB. In 1961, he moved to television where he was a popular presenter of the HSV-7
HSV-7
HSV is a television station in Melbourne. It is part of the Seven Network, one of the three main commercial television networks in Australia, and its first and oldest station, having been launched in time for the 1956 Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne....
program World of Sport
World of Sport (Australian TV series)
World of Sport was an Australian sports program that was broadcast live by HSV 7 in Melbourne from 1959 to 1987 on Sundays between 11am and 2pm...
. Ring had three children with his wife Lesley. He died in Melbourne on 23 June 2003.
Style
Ring was a large man, 6 feet (183 cm) tall, and with his large hands he was able to impart plenty of spin on the ball, although he was not eager to flight the ball especially in English conditions. As a batsman, he was good enough to be considered a genuine all-rounderAll-rounder
An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a few batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are considered specialists...
however his habit playing the ball in the air prevented him from scoring more runs. Ring never brought himself a bat, choosing to rely on a bat he borrowed from the Victorian Cricket Association
Cricket Victoria
Cricket Victoria is the governing body for the sport of cricket in Victoria. It was formed on 29 September 1875 as the Victorian Cricket Association...
practice kit.
Test match performance
| Batting | Bowling | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opposition | Matches | Runs | Average | High Score | 100 / 50 | Runs | Wickets | Average | Best (Inns) |
| England | 2 | 34 | 11.33 | 18 | 0/0 | 171 | 3 | 57.00 | 2/84 |
| India | 1 | 11 | 41.00 | 11 | 0/0 | 120 | 6 | 20.00 | 3/17 |
| South Africa | 5 | 184 | 23.00 | 58 | 0/2 | 624 | 13 | 48.00 | 6/72 |
| West Indies | 5 | 197 | 28.14 | 67 | 0/2 | 390 | 13 | 30.00 | 6/80 |
| Overall | 13 | 426 | 22.42 | 67 | 0/4 | 1305 | 35 | 37.28 | 6/72 |