Graeme Wood

A fine opening batsman from Western Australia, Graeme Wood made his mark during a time when Australia were depleted of resources due to the Packer Series. On an otherwise disastrous tour of West Indies, Wood showed extreme promise, notching up a ton and five half centuries to stake a claim as a permanent member of the side. Throughout his career, he was a reliable opening batsman who had no problems dealing with the most aggressive of bowlers. Wood finished with nine Test tons which was a joint Western Australian record (shared with Kim Hughes) till Justin Langer overtook it in the 2000s. He was a mainstay of the Australian batting line-up till 1985 after which he started experiencing long layoffs due to lack of form. Wood later made a comeback as a middle order batsman in 1988-89 but the stint was short lived.

Wood was a lion in the domestic circuit as well, scoring a mountain of runs for Western Australia. He was influential in their title victories across formats. Despite being a solid batsman, Wood was never given a long run after his initial prime years. The selectors often looked upon him as a last resort who would be fast-tracked to the squad whenever the team was under pressure in a series. Nevertheless, during his peak, Wood had a lot of memorable performances for Australia that had both quality and impact. After retirement, Wood spend a considerable amount of time at Foster's before returning to be involved with Western Australia. After being their selector for a number of years, Wood got appointed as chief executive as well. Not many know that Wood was an active Australian Rules Football player before his Test debut.

By Hariprasad Sadanandan