I guess when you are young, your sporting heroes are probably 10-15 years older than you are. As a result, given that I am now in my early seventies, I should not be surprised to learn that some of them are passing away.

Today saw the passing of one of the two favourite cricketers from my childhood.

The wonderful South Melbourne, Victorian and Australian Test batsman of the 60s and 70s, Ian Redpath, aka Redders, passed away today at the age of 83.

I realise that Redders was a Geelong man, having been to school at Geelong College and living all his life in Geelong, but back then if you were a quality cricketer in Geelong, you had to come to Melbourne and play with one of the District sides as this was well before Geelong were admitted to District (Premier) cricket. As a passionate South Melbourne supporter of both cricket and footy, I was fortunate that Redders came to play with us and I followed his career from District to Shield to Test level, largely in parallel with my other cricket hero Alan Connolly.

I can’t remember what I did last week, but for some reason I can distinctly remember Redder’s first Test. I was excited to hear that he was picked to play the second test of the 1963-64 series against South Africa in Melbourne in the first days of the new year – this was before the tradition of Boxing Day and New Years tests being in Melbourne and Sydney respectively.

As my memory can sometimes play tricks on me, I have just gone back to the record books and the Test was actually exactly as I remember it, watching from my seat in the old Southern Stand at the G.

The Australian captain Bobby Simpson put the South Africans into bat and despite the presence of the great Graeme Pollock who was caught at slip by the captain off Graeme “Garth” McKenzie, they were all out for 274 with the bespectacled opener Eddie Barlow making a century. Then it was time for the Australians to bat and there was my hero walking out to the middle, accompanied by his fellow Victorian Bill Lawry. I was nervous for him. The South Africans has a pretty good pace attack with the speed of Peter Pollock and the swing of Joe Partridge who was my favourite South African on that tour.

I need not have worried as Lawry and Redpath, as they had so often done for their State, piled on a century opening partnership, and then turned it into a double century stand by which time Lawry had already reached his ton. There weren’t many batsmen whose run rate was slower than Lawry’s, but with the score on 219 and Redders needing three for a century on debut, he was bowled by Partridge. Out for 97, a great start to his Test career, but frustratingly short of joining the illustrious band of Australia batsmen to have made a century on debut.

My other distinct memory of that game was Bobby Simpson coming in at number 3 to replace Redders and being clean bowled for a duck by a searing Pollock yorker. I remember thinking maybe sitting around for four hours with his pads on while the two openers made their huge partnership may have left him ill prepared for the delivery he received.

I don’t remember anything else about the game, but on looking at the records today, I note that Australia won comfortably by 8 wickets on the last morning with Redders out for 25 in the second innings.

Redders went on to play 66 Tests for Australia between 1964 and 1976 finishing with a batting average of 43.45 and eight carefully crafted centuries, many of them at crucial moments in games and series. I loved every one of them.

Redders might not have quite got a hundred in his first Test, but he dd get one in his last, against the might of the West Indies again in his home town. He added another 70 in the  second innings playing a major part in delivering a victory against the Windies of Loyd, Richards, Fredericks, Kallicharan, Holding, Gibbs etc.

Following his retirement from Test cricket to look after his antiques business in Geelong (players of that era actually had a life outside of cricket), he was lured back to international cricket as part of World Series cricket and played another couple of seasons there. He later coached Victoria. He was deservedly inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame in 2023.

I only met Redders once and that was a few years ago at a lunch during the 2017 Boxing Day Test. In the best tradition of young boy meets his hero, I was a bit lost for words (which may surprise some of you). But even then it was clear that he was a genuinely humble man who had endeared himself to his teammates and the cricketing public for many years.

RIP my hero Redders.