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Former ‘mystery’ spinner John Gleeson dies aged 78
- Updated: October 8, 2016
John Gleeson, the former Australia spinner, has died at the age of 78 in Tamworth, New South Wales.
Gleeson was Australia’s 242nd Test cricketer and played 29 matches between 1967 and 1972. He took 93 wickets at an average of 36 with five-wicket hauls. Gleeson also claimed 430 first-class wickets in a 116-match career between 1966 and 1975, predominantly for New South Wales.
“He’s sadly passed away in the Tamworth hospital, aged 78,” the former Australia captain Ian Chappell relayed to viewers during Channel Nine’s coverage of a Matador Cup game.
Gleeson was one of the early unorthodox spinners, delivering with an unusual action like Australia’s Jack Iverson before him and Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis decades later. “The folded finger-spinner they called him,” Chappell said. “He came from Tamworth, started out his cricket life as a wicketkeeper and he fiddled around flicking these balls … I think he started with a table tennis ball, and developed into a very fine finger spinner.
“I spoke to him the other day, he’d come to grips with his situation and his last words were to me, ‘Don’t fret, mate, I’m in good shape’.”
A late starter to first-class cricket at 27, Gleeson had …
