Norm O'Neill passes away

[Mr. Wicket]

Norm O'Neill, the dashing Test batsmen of the 1950s and 60s, has died after a long illness. "Norm O'Neill was one of NSW's and Australia's best ever cricketers," said Cricket NSW Chief Executive, David Gilbert. "He will be remembered as a dashing stroke maker who was a crowd favourite. He will be sadly missed." O'Neill OAM, who played 70 First Class matches for NSW between 1955/56 and 1966/67, scored 5419 runs at an average of 52.61. His entire first class career spanned 188 matches for 13,859 runs at 50.95. In his 42 Test matches O'Neill scored 2779 runs at 45.55. He made six centuries and 15 half-centuries with his high score of 181 coming in the first innings of the Tied Test against the West Indies in 1960. But O'Neill was something more than his statistics, said Warren Saunders, who played with O'Neill at his club St George and for NSW. "I've got beautiful memories of Norm O'Neill he was a sensational cricketer. He was a sensational sportsman, actually he was also a top-class baseballer as well as a cricketer," he said. "He was a wonderful fellow to play with in every respect, a great team man, a champion batsman. He's got a great Test record but that doesn't really tell the story it was the way he got his runs that excited everybody. "He was a beautiful thrower with a very strong arm and a handy change bowler: he was the complete package.''

Sad news. O'Neill was a very impressive middle order batsman for Australia - shared some excellent partnerships with Neil Harvey in particular (with a quite famous double century stand in Bombay against Bapu Nadkarni at his peak), and of course was noted for his great hundred in the original Tied Test, where he made his career high score of 181.

[Guest Hiten.]

RIP O'Neill

[IndianRenegade]

He looks a lot like Matty Hayden...

[IndianRenegade]

Rip

[Cricketics]

R.I.P Mr.Neill

[Guest HariSampath]

RIP Norman O'Neill. The first post war batsman to be dubbed "next Bradman", he was a great batsman in the lineup of Harvey, Simpson, Benaud, but didnt do as much justice to his ability partly because of the hype surrounding him earlier on and inflating expectations, but he averaged 45 in tests in that era and his 180 in the Brisbane tied test is something I have heard my Dad's generation discuss.

[Lurker]

One of the first cricketer I ever read about. It was in some obscure Hindi cricket book about greatest matches ever and of course the Tie test was right on top of the list. Whenever I hear the mention of Tie test I am reminded of Jack Solomon, Alan Davidson and of course Norman O Neil. Rest in peace.

[Shehezaada]

Rip