Tasmania's oldest cricket captain Jack Laver reflects on his time in the game on his 100th birthday

Tasmania’s oldest living first-class cricketer, who notched up his finest 100 on Thursday, still has enough of his faculties to hold onto the one regret to his resting spot.

“My eyes are gone, my ears are gone, my brains are gone,” he deadpans before a glint returns to his eye, all but changing his tone, “but my legs are going along just alright.”

But Laver, who broke a few headlines in his day before second-cousin Rod stole a few a decade or two later on the tennis court, said he was also content representing just Tasmania.

That says a lot for the former Victorian, whose move to Launceston for his plastering apprenticeship coincided with the 1940/41 NTCA season, winning the competition batting average at South Launceston in a teaser of what was to come. 

“It was something playing (for the state),” Laver says.

“And at my age, spending over four years in the army, where at that stage, I was a fringe Australian allrounder.

“As it turned out, you take four years out at that age, I came back and still had nearly 10 years for Tassie.”

Laver enlisted in the Australian army in 1942 for the war effort and served in the 6th Division Provost Company as lieutenant before being discharged to return to his new home and take up a pivotal role playing for West Launceston. 

That 1946/47 season was when he was first selected for Tasmania, one of 13 first-class appearances when playing Sheffield Shield was a state pipedream.

“I think it’s more games than that,” Laver cheekily remarks when daughter Sue Shea reads his Tasmanian career summary.

Matches back in the day came rather haphazardly, and Laver, who was first named Tasmanian twelfth man, knew he had to grab his chance. And did he what.

Laver’s state debut proved his most memorable knock.

On December 30 of ‘46, Laver let the fireworks off a day or so early, racking up nearly a run-a-minute – back when minutes rather than balls were the measure to scoring – with his 93 coming up in just 94 minutes against his old state.

“I came off at one break and I was 50 not out,” Laver recalls. “One of my teammates said to me, ‘Jack, you’ve got 50 for me, now you get 50 for yourself’.”

Laver didn’t quite, but he rescued Tasmania from 5-75 to score 211 inside 39 overs.

Though that same game he was overshadowed by an 18-year-old Neil Harvey, striking 154 in under three hours, the near maiden century elevated Laver to the Tasmanian Combined XI to play the touring English 11 days later at Hobart.

That was the big-time cricket without actually donning a Baggy Green itself to play alongside Australian regulars Sid Barnes, Lindsay Hassett, Ian Johnson and the greatest allrounder of the time, Keith Miller.

But Laver? The Poms had never heard of the upstart. 

The 29-year-old showed he was far from intimidated facing up against greats Alec Bedser, John Edrich and Denis Compton to score a well-compiled 30 before the latter of the Marylebone trio snared Laver’s wicket. 

But they knew even little more of who this debonair finger spinner was.

His sharpish off-breaks, which weren’t called upon in the English first innings, caught the tourists off guard in the second on a playable TCA ground in Hobart.

With the occasional flick of the hair before delivery stride, Laver tore through to grab 5 for 26 in just 26 balls.

Combined XI captain was South Launceston opening batsman Ron Morrisby, who knew a thing or two about Laver’s ripping deliveries.

“I heard him say that whatever the score it doesn’t matter – let’s give Jack Laver a twirl,” he says. “That’s how it happened. I took five-for.”

The story deepens further.

Laver was actually on a hat-trick when the umpires took afternoon tea at the fall of the ninth wicket. 

Any nervous energy he had chewing down a piece of cake evaporated quicker than him sipping down his warm cuppa.

English captain Norman Yardley, almost against the spirit of the contest, declared the innings close with a 257-run lead and just one session to play. “They’re the little things,” Laver laughs, “it doesn’t really matter.”

That memory stays alive in his mind to this day – even Compton’s.

Laver tells the story that nearly 25 years later he travelled to England watching one of his eight visiting Ashes tours, walked into the bar, asked for a drink, turned to his side to find the 78-Test star batsman sitting there.

“He turned to me and said, ‘Bloody Jack Laver’,” he recalls, chuckling away.

By the time his first-class career drew to a close, he not only played against the English four years later, but captained the Tasmanian state team against them. 

He did that one more time against Victoria and faced the Indians in 1948 and the West Indians in 1952.

But Laver’s own cricket pedigree was unparalleled, the nephew of Frank Laver, who played 15 Test matches for Australia from 1899-1909, claiming 37 wickets at 26.05 and a best 8-31 haul. 

The 100-year-old has seen it all from convening ground improvements to the NTCA Ground when a fire destroyed parts of the stands and dressing rooms to a quarter of a century later bringing the Launceston venue ready for Sheffield Shield cricket in 1977.

But Laver even believed he and his Launceston state teammate, the late Rex Davidson, predicted changes towards the shift to the modern Twenty20 game.

“It’s what the public is looking for,” he accepts.

“Rex and I have been friends for 70 years and we reckon 70 years ago that Test cricket was going to shrink and now it’s happening.

“The average public don’t watch Test cricket like they used to. They like the stuff where they dress up and can wave flags – but that’s alright.”