Published The Advocate, November 6, 2004


IN A previous life in a land far, far away, I stood at the sidelines watching a chunky teenager in the cricket nets whacking balls one after another straight back at bowlers twice his age.

I had never seen anyone hit the ball so hard, not up close. The impact of each howitzer shot was felt in the chest as much as heard. The kid was built like a brick outhouse.

The bowlers were powerless. It might have been humiliating had the kid not been wearing a broad, almost embarrassed grin.

He was batting at another level, trusting in his instincts with perfect hand-eye coordination, which the young can do until mature consideration sows seeds of doubt. Youth cannot be denied its own nature.

He did not have a textbook technique and his footwork was suspect, yet whatever the bowlers delivered was dispatched with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of power.

Even with the protection of the side netting, I instinctively flinched when he swiveled my way and hooked. The cricket club president ducked too.

‘‘This lad,’’ he declared, ‘‘will one day play for Australia.’’

The lad was Darren ‘‘Boof’’ Lehmann, aged 15 or 16, at practice in the Salisbury Oval nets in northern Adelaide. His dad, the local cop, was parked in a police car on the embankment, ever watchful.

It took Darren a while to gain Australian selection and then he was preferred for the one-day game rather than the Test side.

It was thought his Test career was delayed because he never attended the Australian Cricket Academy, which was just starting in Adelaide back then. David Hookes, the SA cricket captain, apparently told him not to bother with the Academy.

Hookes was his great mate. They were together on the fatal night early this year when Hooksey’s head cracked against the pavement in an altercation with a hotel bouncer at St Kilda. Darren saw him dying.

Afterwards, grief-stricken, Darren spoke of the needless waste and wondered aloud about his retirement. Here was a man in pain, contemplating the point of life, not just his future in cricket.

We met briefly a couple of times but I knew him better through mutual friends. Everyone said he was a nice bloke, a family man with a photo of his twins in his wallet, who treated allcomers with courtesy and respect. Boof was no bighead.

Sadly, without wishing to put the mozz on him, I expect we have seen the last of Darren in Test cricket. He recently tore a hamstring running between wickets in the Third Test at Nagpur, in India, doing what he did best, belting out a brutal 70.

At 34, it is hard to see him returning from injury yet again in a side stuffed with batting talent.

When newcomer Michael Clarke made 151 on Test debut in India, Darren even volunteered to stand aside to allow him to remain in the side.

Such is the measure of the man. Sport is said to be character building – more often, true character is revealed.