Global InformationLen Pascoe information
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| Full name | Leonard Stephen Pascoe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 13 February 1950 Bridgetown, Western Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bowling | Right-arm fast | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| National side |
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| Test debut (cap 277) | 16 June 1977 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Test | 30 January 1982 v West Indies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ODI debut (cap 35) | 2 June 1977 v England | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last ODI | 20 February 1982 v New Zealand | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1974/75–1983/84 | New South Wales | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source: CricketArchive, 16 December 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Leonard Stephen Pascoe (born Leonard Stephen Durtanovich, 13 February 1950)[1] is a former Australian Test and One Day International cricketer.
Born at Bridgetown, Western Australia, Pascoe was educated at Punchbowl Boys' High School in New South Wales, where he was a classmate of Jeff Thomson.[2] The two of them would form a close friendship, playing cricket together at club, state and Test level.
Pascoe played in 14 Tests and 29 ODIs between 1977 and 1982, during which time he transferred to World Series Cricket.[3] In the 1980 Centenary Test at The Oval in London, he took 5/59 in the 1st innings. Pascoe retired from international cricket due to a knee injury after the 1981/82 Frank Worrell Trophy series in Australia.
Pascoe is the son of a Macedonian immigrant father.[4][5] While a former NSW teammate, Geoff Lawson, claimed in his autobiography that Pascoe was often subject to baiting about his ethnicity during matches, especially from brothers Ian and Greg Chappell, this was contradicted by Pascoe in court, under oath in a defamation case, when he stated that such comments were never made.
He is a popular after-dinner speaker.[5] He once stated, tongue-in-cheek, that "a tiger never changes its spots" (in a sarcastic response to wicket-keeper Rod Marsh's comment "I thought you were going to bowl more bouncers").[5]
Pascoe has spoken of an incident when he hit Indian cricketer Sandeep Patil during the 1981–82 series,[6] which he has stated changed him as a cricketer and stated afterwards that he wanted to retire, which he did after playing another three Tests.[7]
In November 2017, after returning home from a tour of South Australia and Western Australia with former teammates Doug Walters and Jeff Thomson, it was reported that Pascoe had been diagnosed with an infection of cryptococcal gattii and had to spend three weeks in a hospital in Sydney for treatment.[8]
In January 2020, Pascoe encouraged singer/songwriter Matt Scullion to write a song about the 1868 Aboriginal cricket tour to England, having been talking to Gamilaraay elder and retired cricketer Les Knox about the event. Scullion wrote the song, titled "1868", and sung it at the second Twenty20 International at the Sydney Cricket Ground in early 2021, and planned to do so again at the Bradman Museum in April 2021.[needs update][9][10]
- ^ "Take up thy bed and bat". ESPN Cricinfo. 13 February 2007. Retrieved 14 February 2017.
- ^ Moore, Tony (23 October 2015). "Cricket greats' tall tales bring light to dark battle with depression, PTSD". Brisbane Times.
- ^ Cricinfo – Players and Officials – Len Pascoe
- ^ Peter, Hill. (1989) The Macedonians in Australia, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, pp. 131
- ^ a b c Mustafi, Suvajit (13 February 2017). "Len Pascoe: 23 facts about the fearsome Australian pacer of Yugoslavian origin". Cricket Country. Retrieved 24 September 2018.
- ^ "When a Len Pascoe Bouncer Got Sandeep Patil Hospitalised". 19 November 2018.
- ^ "The contradictory fear of the fast bowler". ESPNcricinfo. Retrieved 24 September 2018.
- ^ "Pascoe's Close Call". The Age. 24 November 2017. p. 48.
- ^ Jackson, Russell (18 February 2021). "How Len Pascoe turned Australia's pioneering Indigenous cricket team into a chart-topping song". - ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
- ^ 1868 Matt Scullion on YouTube