In an era well before Big Bash and Bazball, the Australian cricketer Keith Stackpole, who has died aged 84, was an uncommonly bold and attacking opening Test batsman from 1966 to 1974.
His unusually swashbuckling style at the top of the order was thrown into especially stark relief by the fact that so many of his Test innings as an opener were with the contrastingly dour figure of Bill Lawry, immune to the pleasures of swift run gathering.
A stockily belligerent counterpoint to Lawry’s reed-thin caution, Stackpole took little notice of the long established defensive tenets of opening batsmanship, preferring instead to grab any chance he could to belt the ball around the field.
“If someone bowled a half-pitched ball wide of me first ball in a Test match, I’d shoulder arms and watch it go through,” said Lawry. “But Stacky would just pin back his ears and thrash it through gully for four.”
In the days before one-day cricket had properly reshaped the game, such risky enterprise was not completely unheard of – as the presence of the similarly aggressive England batsman Colin Milburn attested. Nonetheless it was a novelty, and it set Stackpole apart.
His method was also highly effective over 43 Tests, establishing him as one of Australia’s most consistent run getters of the early 70s and helping him towards the vice-captaincy.
Afterwards he became a radio and TV commentator as well as a newspaper columnist in Melbourne.
Stackpole was born in the Collingwood area of Melbourne to Hannah (nee Dunn), a housewife, and Keith Sr, who was a first class cricketer for Victoria but was better known as an Aussie Rules footballer for Collingwood and Fitzroy.
After Keith Jr had revealed his cricketing talents at Christian Brothers college in Clifton Hill, the careers of father and son overlapped briefly when they played together for the Collingwood club in 1957 – senior appearing in his last match while junior was making his debut.
Although much influenced by his father – a similarly burly attacking batsman – Stackpole also came under the wing of the Collingwood stalwart Jack Ryder, a former Australia captain who managed to add other dimensions to the youngster’s game without stifling his natural feel for back-foot play or his penchant for carving the ball square on both sides of the wicket.
By 1960 he was making his first class debut for Victoria, and by 1963 he had established himself in the side, usually at No 3. His Test debut came in the lower middle order against England in Adelaide in 1966, a match in which he scored 43 in his only innings and dismissed Colin Cowdrey and MJK Smith with his occasional leg breaks – exploits that were good enough to see him selected for the 1966-67 tour to South Africa.
Despite a big-hitting debut Test century in Cape Town at No 7, his performances on that trip were unremarkable, and he continued in generally moderate vein until a breakthrough arrived in early 1969. Lawry, by that time captain and trying to find a replacement for his recently retired opening partner, Bobby Simpson, decided to shift Stackpole up the order against West Indies in Sydney. In his new position he scored three half-centuries in his first four innings, and the die was cast. He was an opener for the remaining 33 matches of his Test career.
Averaging 46 in the following 1969-70 series in India, Stackpole proved to be a key component of Australia’s rare series win there, and finally established his value beyond all doubt during England’s 1970-71 visit to Australia with scores of 207 in the first Test in Brisbane, 136 in the fifth in Adelaide and a sequence of other solid innings as he finished with 627 runs at an average of 52.25.
Lawry lost the captaincy to Ian Chappell after the sixth match of that long, losing, seven Test series. Chappell and Stackpole formed a watertight alliance during the subsequent drawn series in England in 1972. Stackpole was now vice-captain, and from a batting standpoint continued to mine his rich seam of form, scoring more than any other Australian in Tests on the tour, hitting five half-centuries and a century, and averaging 53.88. Wisden made him one of its five cricketers of the year in 1973 as a result.
By then in his early 30s, he was able to play two more seasons for Australia as vice-captain, resulting in two series victories – in the West Indies in 1972-73 and in Australia against New Zealand in 1974 – followed by a 1-1 draw in three matches in New Zealand (also 1974). His final Test, in Auckland, finished on an uncharacteristically tame note when he was dismissed for 0 in both innings, leaving him with a Test batting average of 37.42.
His last international appearance came in a 35-over match at the end of that tour, one of only six one-day games he played. Although he was well suited to the short form of cricket, he was frustrated in the days of its infancy by the inability of most other players to grasp its entertaining possibilities.
Stackpole’s first class career also ended in 1974, with a Sheffield Shield winning season for Victoria – as captain – to add to two others in 1967 and 1970. Overall he scored 10,100 runs at an average of 39.29 and took 148 wickets. Shortly after his retirement he was made MBE.
His media work began with an invitation to commentate on Kerry Packer’s World Series cricket in 1977, after which he had a three-decade career in broadcasting with the Nine and Seven networks before retiring from ABC in 2005. He also coached a number of players at Victoria, including Dean Jones and Brad Hodge.
He is survived by his wife, Pat, and their children, Peter, Tony and Angela.
• Keith Raymond Stackpole, cricketer, born 10 July 1940; died 22 April 2025
