Redmond, middle, back row, was part of a strong New Zealand team to tour England in 1973.
Photo: Supplied
One of New Zealand’s most intriguing cricket mysteries is how Rodney Redmond could score a test 100 on debut and never play for his country again.
The 78-year-old’s brief international career finished 50 years ago this month. Now living in Perth, Australia, he looks back without any bitterness, and says the side at the time he played was hard to crack.
In February 1973, he made cricket history.
With his white shirt unbuttoned below the chest and long blond hair flowing, Redmond brought up his ton against Pakistan at Auckland’s Eden Park with a flourishing drive of leg-spinner Intikhab Alam.
The crowd ran onto the field and, in amazing scenes, carried him on their shoulders.
It was the second time in a few minutes they had done that, having been too quick off the mark a few balls earlier when Redmond hit the ball towards the boundary, only for a Pakistani fielder to save it.
“What I remember most from it was the crowd coming on to the field,” Redmond said.
“When they got them off the field [the first time] Glenn said to me then, ‘If you get another two runs, make sure you run away from the pitch,’ and that’s what I did.”
Glenn is New Zealand batting great Glenn Turner, Redmond’s opening batting partner who was at the other end, and out of the way of the invading crowd.
“Rodney played shots. He was an aggressive player,” Turner said.
“A lot of people ran out on to the field to congratulate him and he got a bit of a roughing up.
“I thought it was over the top – people being too friendly, slapping him on the back. It was like these days when a rugby player scores, he gets beaten up by his mates.”
Redmond did not look happy to be manhandled.
“I don’t think it was normal in those days. I played in Auckland. That maybe had a bearing on it.
“I basically just told them to leave me alone.”
Emerging unscathed, Redmond was dismissed soon after for 107. He and Turner put on a partnership of 159.
Redmond scored a half-century in the second innings as New Zealand drew the test, but lost the series to Pakistan. The game is also remembered for a last wicket stand of 151 between Brian Hastings and Richard Collinge, the No 11, in an eventful first innings.
Redmond said he did not remember much from his century and he was modest about his achievement.
“It’s just one of those things. I was given an opportunity and really it just happened to be my day when I went out to bat.
“These things do happen occasionally and it happened this time.”
The New Zealand Cricket Annual wrote that Redmond survived a confident appeal for a catch before he scored, and initially looked tentative. This changed as the ball’s shine came off.
“Strokes began to replace tentative dabs. In [Majid] Khan’s first over the first five balls were hit to the fence…
“The crowd were intoxicated by the audacity of the test apprentice thrashing the long experienced tradesman for 20 runs in five balls.”
In front of about 14,000, Redmond was the third New Zealander to score a ton on test debut.
After a lengthy career in domestic cricket for Wellington and Auckland, Redmond’s international callup came when regular opener John Parker was injured.
Redmond found out through a radio broadcast.
“I was at home and I was sitting on the toilet. It came across the radio and that’s how I found out. I won’t forget that.”
When he reached his century, members of the crowd ran on and jostled and hoisted Redmond.
Photo: Supplied
Despite his success, Redmond never played another test, becoming one of just two men, alongside West Indies opener Andrew Ganteaume in 1948, to score a century in their only match at that level.
He toured England in 1973 and played in a couple of uneventful one-day internationals – the last one 50 years ago this month – but could not make the test team.
Parker returned, but barely scored a run in the tests – just 23 in five innings.
Then, that was it for Redmond.
“They were a pretty good side,” he said of the New Zealand team on that tour. “They had Turner, John Parker. There was [Bevan] Congdon. There was [Mark] Burgess. I could go on…
“It was an enjoyable tour, but I hardly played. It seemed longer at times than it really was because if you don’t play that often you get bored. Three or four of us didn’t play many games.”
Other problems cropped up, too.
“I was short-sighted in one eye. I tried contact lenses, but I just kept getting grit underneath the lenses, so I reverted back to my glasses after that,” he said.
“When we came back home I didn’t play. I didn’t play first-class cricket. I pulled out for that period of time.
“I just played club cricket and I didn’t put myself up for the Auckland side until the following year.”
He played for Auckland until 1976, but was never again in national reckoning.
Turner said Redmond would have been well-suited to limited-overs games, which were few and far between back then.
“I got the feeling that Rodney was selected probably a little later than he should have been, when the best of his cricket was perhaps behind him.
“But, yeah, an entertaining cricketer and a likeable character, Rod.”
As for when Redmond reached his 100, Turner could not quite remember his reaction, but said it would have been low key.
“In those days you didn’t make a fuss. You didn’t want to be seen as a skite.
“I don’t know if I shook his hand or what I did, but it wouldn’t have been overly demonstrative, I can tell you that.”
Redmond and his wife Brenda moved to Perth in 1985.
He stayed involved in cricket through coaching, and with his son Aaron, who played for New Zealand, but now only really follows the All Blacks rather than the Black Caps.
His own international career never came up in conversation, he said.
“I think I was lucky being given an opportunity in the first place. I wasn’t all that upset about not getting back into the test side again.
“I just enjoyed my club cricket and playing for Auckland.”
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