Australia’s First Nightwatchman to Score a Test Century, Tony Mann, Passes Away at 74

Mann, a leg spinner by trade, had scored 105 against India at WACA Ground, Perth, Western Australia in 1977 in the second Test during the second innings

Western Australia legend and Australia’s first nightwatchman to score a Test century – Tony Mann – died Friday morning after a seven-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

Mann, a leg spinner by trade, had scored 105 against India at WACA Ground, Perth, Western Australia in 1977 in the second Test during the second innings, coming in to bat at No.3. Chasing 339 to win, Australia won by two wickets with Mann’s 105 being the top score. The next best was 83 from Peter Toohey.

Mann only played four Tests claiming four wickets at 79.00 and made 198 runs in eight innings. In his 80 First Class games, Mann picked 200 wickets at 34.54 with a best of 6/94 and made 2444 runs in 122 innings at 24.22 with two hundreds and 11 fifties to his name. He was part of Western Australia’s seven Sheffield Shields wins and eight club titles.

His career spanned 24 years and became a teacher before taking over as the cricket manager at the WACA. He is credited with recruiting Adam Gilchrist to Western Australia and converting Australian international Brad Hogg in to a leg-spinner.

He was in good spirits in his last few days at St John of God, Murdoch, seeing dozens of visitors and taking numerous phone calls from people, including Australian coach Justin Langer and England protege Alec Stewart, reported the west.com.au.

The first nightwatchman to score a Test century was Pakistan’s Nasim-ul-Ghani, who made 101 against England at Lord’s in 1962. Mann registered his triple-figure score 15 years later. After Mann, only three other nightwatchmen have scored a century.

India’s Syed Kirmani made 101* against Australia after being bumped up the order at the Wankhede Stadium in 1979, followed by 125 and 108 by South African wicketkeeper batsman Mark Boucher against Zimbabwe and England, respectively, in 1999. Jason Gillespire’s 201* against Bangladesh in 2006 was the last triple-figure mark by a nightwatchman and the only double hundred.