Lord Stuey, a tribute, a bagging, a goodbye

<p class="MsoNormal">Lord Stuey was like an unromantic, and grumpy version of Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.
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<p class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately for him he walked into a dressing room that was more Mad Max than Jane Austen.
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<p class="MsoNormal">He was never ever going to fit in, some will say he didn’t have to.
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<p class="MsoNormal">They could be right, 200 wickets @ 28 with a titillating strike rate should have been enough.
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<p class="MsoNormal">But the Australian public has an image of it’s cricketers, and Stuey MacGill was not it.
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<p class="MsoNormal">The fact a born and bred Australian could be thought of as less Australian than a West Indian dread locked Pommy born player is amazing.
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<p class="MsoNormal">Stuey is Australian, but he just aint the Australian that most people automatically think of.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">He was too educated.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Quiet when he should be loud, and loud when he should be quiet.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">He sledged his team mates more than he sledged the opposition.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">He was sulky.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Too sure of himself.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Wanted to distance himself from the sport that made him.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Took political stands.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Hated Murdoch papers.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Got excited in odd moments.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Bowled too many bad balls.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Had an air that alienated sports fans.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Sometimes he looked angrier getting a wicket than he did getting hit for four.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">His long sleeves and correctly annunciated words were of another era, and another country.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">The average Australian cricket fan thought he was a wanker.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">He wasn’t the sort of bloke you’d have a beer with, want your sister dating, could visit port phillip island with.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Stuey was more the kind you'd expect behind the lectern giving a speech on Political Science.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="">Australian cricket is not the place for a man like him, and it showed throughout his whole career.
<p class="MsoNormal">He had the anger, the hunger and the skill to play for Australia, but he just did it differently.

At his best he was in the top 3 leg spinners in the world.
<p class="MsoNormal">At his worst he was uglier than a Chernobyl reunion.

<p class="MsoNormal">He imparted amazing spin on the ball.

When he took wickets, he took bag fulls.
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<p class="MsoNormal">But he was erratic, he was difficult and he could lose the plot like few before him.
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<p class="MsoNormal">His failures were extravagantly wonderful, including bowling the West Indies to a record 4th innings run chase.
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<p class="MsoNormal">Team mates, the media and fans couldn’t work him out, the fact that Brad Hogg, a man with 1/80th the skills level was more well liked tells a great picture.
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<p class="MsoNormal">He was Lord Stuey, the man with the golden hands.
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<p class="MsoNormal">Part old world spinner, part new world intellectual.
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<p class="MsoNormal">A man who enjoyed a sip of merlot to a skull of xxxx.
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<p class="MsoNormal">A man who refused to fit in.
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<p class="MsoNormal">A man who very rarely bored you.
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<p class="MsoNormal">You may have loved him.
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<p class="MsoNormal">You may have hated him.
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<p class="MsoNormal">But how many people had no opinion on him at all?
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<p class="MsoNormal">Stuey, it has been a pleasure to bag you, worship you, laugh at you, laugh with you and watch you.
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<p class="MsoNormal">You have earned your place in the Leg Spinning Val Halla.
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