Australian cricket mourns 1956 Olympian and 31st Test captain Brian Booth, dead at 89

Australia’s 31st men’s Test cricket captain, Brian Booth, has died aged 89.

Booth, who played 29 Tests for Australia, scored five Test centuries and was a key cog in Australia’s batting throughout the early part of the 1960s. Such was his athleticism, he also represented Australia in hockey at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. But it was in cricket where he made his name with 1773 Test runs at 42.21.

A stylish middle-order bat, Booth made a century in his first home Test against England in 1962, before scoring another in the next match at the MCG. He averaged 50.5 as Australia retained the Ashes at home before dominating South Africa the following summer with another two Test tons.

The right-hander went on to post solid returns in England in 1964 as Australia again won the Ashes, and was handed the captaincy for two matches in 1965-66 with Bob Simpson out. But at the same time his own batting stumbled and after the hosts were beaten heavily in the second of those matches, Simpson returned to the side and Booth was dropped, never to play for Australia again.

“Captaining Australia was a privilege,” a philosophical Booth said in an interview with the Cricket Monthly in 2013. “Bobby Simpson was the regular captain and broke his arm just prior to the first Test.

“He came back for the second Test in Melbourne and on the eve of the third, in Sydney, Sir Donald Bradman approached me at practice and said, ‘Bob has chicken pox, Brian. You’re captaining tomorrow’.”

Booth’s subsequent omission prompted Bradman to write to him, telling him he and his colleagues had “disliked” having to go from making him captain to out of the side in the space of three matches.

“I don’t think he’d ever done that (written to a player) before,” Booth said.