Former Australia captain and coach Bob Simpson passed away aged 89 on August 16, Saturday. He played a crucial role in the rise of Australia’s modern-day dominance. Simpson’s Test career spanned more than two decades after he made a stunning return to lead the national side in his forties.
Simpson made his international debut in 1957 and his career spanned over two decades, including a remarkable comeback in his 40s. He played 62 Test matches and 2 ODIs, scoring 4,869 Test runs and taking 71 wickets. He led Australia in 39 Tests, winning 12 of them.
Simpson stepped away from cricket in 1968 but made a surprise return in 1977 at the age of 41. Australia was struggling at the time due to the exodus of players to World Series Cricket, and Simpson was called back to lead a young side. He played 10 more Tests in his comeback, scoring two centuries and averaging over 50 in 1977.
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One of Simpson’s most iconic performances came in 1964 when he finally broke a long run without a century. At The Oval in England, he batted for more than 13 hours, scoring a massive 311, still one of the longest innings in Test history. He became the first Test captain to score a triple century, a record for the youngest to do so that stood for over 60 years until South African Wiaan Mulder broke it in 2025.
After announcing his retirement in 1978, Simpson rejoined Cricket Australia as the first full-time coach in 1986. Over the next decade, he played a significant role in shaping the modern Australian team, guiding them to their first-ever World Cup victory in 1987 and helping them reclaim the Frank Worrell Trophy in 1995 after a 17-year absence.
He was honoured with a place in the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2006 and inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2013.
Simpson had a unique link to one of cricket’s rarest events, the tied Test. He was an opening batsman in the famous 1960 tied Test against the West Indies in Brisbane, and years later, he was Australia’s coach during the 1986 tie against India in Chennai.
Beyond the national team, Simpson also shared his knowledge with the Indian cricket team in the 1990s and worked briefly with the Rajasthan team in the Ranji Trophy in the early 2000s.
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