IT is 18 years since I spoke to Michael Kasprowicz down a crackling phone line to North Sydney Oval, yet I swear I can still hear his trembling voice.
He was just 17. He sounded 15, maybe younger, as he whispered "Oh my God" in response to my big news.
Kasprowicz, that day 12th man for the Australian under-19 side, had been chosen by Queensland's cricket selectors to play a Sheffield Shield match against Western Australia in a few days. At the time he was still at school.
After hanging up the phone I said to a colleague that my major fear for Kasprowicz was that he was such a nice fellow I wondered how he would survive in the brutal battleground of first-class cricket.
SET to quit ... Michael Kasprowicz with wife Lindsay, daughter Greta and newborn Ed George last year.
Like the undemonstrative Graham McKenzie, Kapil Dev and Paul Reiffel, he gained wickets through the force of his bowling rather than his theatrics, with a basic honesty about the way he slapped his skills on the table.
His voice sounded croaky and weak. I thought he was shot for the tour. Somehow he got through to win Australia the last Test. It was some effort.
He was branded a subcontinent specialist but once, with a West Indies tour looming, hinted to the selectors, "I do like pina coladas and coconuts as well, not just curries."
He never made a West Indies tour but he achieved just about everything else the game could offer – a fitting reward for one of the most likable men in the game.
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