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Submitted by Trevor Vayro
9th ABCC Carnival Melbourne 1968-69
The Queensland Squad departed Brisbane travelling by trains Brisbane Limited to Sydney and travelling overnight to Melbourne from Sydney by the Southern Aurora. Accommodation had been arranged for the squad at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St. Kilda. The hotel was situated close to the St. Kilda Junction which proved extremely handy for tram transport and also reasonably close to the location where the social functions were held.
Queensland was keen to perform well again after having competed in the final two years earlier. Former partially players from Victoria Bob Hodder and Bob Curtin had joined our
Association and would prove valuable players during the carnival matches. This would be my fifth occasion as captain of Queensland and also the last occasion as Queensland would gain many new partially sighted players for the future to carry out this important role.
Victoria as the Host State welcomed players and officials from the four competing States of Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria. The opening ceremony was highlighted by the appearance of Bill Lawry, former International Cricketer and now current Channel 9 cricket announcer. Bill Lawry took strike to the opening ball of the carnival and Carnival President David Blyth asked me to bowl the first ball which Bill promptly hit to the boundary for four runs. David Blyth welcomed all players and officials to the Melbourne Carnival and matches continued over a single round with a two day final.
Queensland met Victoria in the opening match and this proved to be a most exciting match with Victoria defeating Queensland by a small number of runs on the first innings. However, Victoria lost early wickets with Bob Evans and Ian Walsh who was one of their outstanding partially players in those days both being dismissed for low scores. The fielding of Queensland was outstanding with a high percentage of returns continually hitting the stumps. John Middleton, Bob Hodder and Lindsay Dyball were outstanding in the field. New South Wales defeated Tasmania on the first innings. On the second day's play Queensland defeated Tasmania by a substantial margin on the first innings and failed to gain an outright win having Tasmania six wickets for a low score in the second innings. Victoria accounted for New South Wales in their match. On the third day Queensland met New South Wales and after an extremely close match won on the first innings by a small number of runs. Victoria defeated Tasmania on the first innings comfortably. Queensland again had secured a position in the final and eagerly looked forward to the final. Victoria won the toss and elected to bat first scoring in excess of 170 runs. Queensland did not perform well in their first innings and failed to pass the halfway mark. Victoria enforced the follow on rule and Queensland whilst improving in the second innings never placed Victoria under any pressure and their opening two batsmen scored the necessary runs to win the final by nine wickets.
Presentation of Trophies was held at the Farewell Function and for the first occasion the umpires named the Inaugural Australian Blind Cricket Squad. At the ABCC meeting held in Hobart two years earlier, States had agreed for the introduction of the ABCC Squad to be named at each carnival. This team was as follows: Partially players: Colin Eccles, Rod Mills, Bob Evans, Ian Walsh, Bob Hodder and John Middleton. Totally Blind Players were: Ivan Molloy, Charlie Bradly, Trevor Vayro, Terry Eagers and Mervyn Hine. Twelfth men were respectively Bill Brown and Ian Nicholls. Best players for Queensland during the individual trophies were Bob Hodder and Terry Eagers. Best overall carnival players were Bob Evans and Ivan Molloy.
Players from Queensland all performed well in this series and looked forward to the Sydney Carnival two years later where for the first time South Australia would become part of the Australian Blind Cricket Carnival program.