The Ashes Legends: David Boon - A 'Boon' to the Ashes

Boon’s tremendous form against the English continued again when the Aussies arrived in England in 1993 to defend their Ashes. His bludgeoning of the hapless English seamers ensured that Australia retained their Ashes crown, as he smashed 555 runs (series highest) at an average of 69.37.

Apart from being a terrific middle order batsman, Boon did extremely well as an opener, a pugnacious opener at that. Australia struggled a lot with their opening combination, and when Kepler Wessels quit the team mid-summer, Boon was promoted to open the batting with debutant Geoff Marsh. He responded extremely well, and scored his first ever Test century, 123 from 255 balls against India. Despite massive success over the years as a demolition man at the top of the order, Boon had to drop down the order to accommodate Mark Taylor and Geoff Marsh at the top.

This is where he unearthed his true potential and became one of Australia’s leading batsmen in the middle order. It was during the 1990-91 Ashes series that he dropped to No. 3 and No. 4 in the order to accommodate Taylor and Marsh. He hit a beautifully crafted and well timed century in the second innings of the third Test in Adelaide; he also had three scores over 50, including two scores in the 90s, as Australia won the series 3-0. He was in surreal form throughout, and was almost untouchable.

When he was at his best, even getting him close to a dismissal was difficult. You could see him grinding away at bowlers, bashing the ball to the fence with utmost ease. His shot selection was out of the world; conventional in every sense of the word, Boon played the most crisp cover drives you could ever imagine. His cut-throat nature also played a big hand in his development of a pile-driving cut-shot. His batting against England in the Ashes was like a fairy-tale that would never end.

His imperious form in the 1993 Ashes suddenly made everyone stand up and take notice of this man’s coming of age. Once he got into his 30s though, Boon seldom had a prolonged period where he would be performing at the top of his powers. There is one very popular saying – “Everything that goes up, must eventually come down.” Every cricketer, be it a batsman or bowler, Indian or Australian, always reaches a point in his career where he no longer holds the key to his team’s success; he no longer makes the contributions to the team he once made.

David Boon too reached such a scenario in his career. His form began to wane by the 1994-95 series (despite smashing 131 in the second innings of the Melbourne Test match and taking a gem of a catch for Shane Warne’s only international hat-trick) but as the powers above would have it, Australia won the series yet again.

His longevity at the top level, despite some major hiccups in form, is a part of his massive aura: he stayed a part of the major Test scene in a strong Australian team for 12 years, well into his mid-30s. His records have astounded generation after generation of cricket fans the world over, be it his batting or those unbelievable 52 beers that he downed. All in all, as a cricketer, he played 107 Tests, scored 7422 runs at an average of 43.65 and hit 21 centuries throughout his Test career.

Having said that, I realise only now that there is no doubting the banners that fans carry around the stadiums in Australia and the world over during the Ashes, which famously read – “Boon – Dead Set Legend”.