Incoming WA cricket boss John Stephenson reflects on connection and Dennis Lillee rivalry

This is not John Stephenson’s first dance with the might and power of West Australian cricket. The incoming WA Cricket CEO already has an official tie with WA history as the 882nd and last first-class wicket taken by fast bowling great Dennis Lillee. It was September 17, 1988 at Chelmsford, and Essex was playing Northamptonshire in the final innings of the final game of the County season. Stephenson, an upright and dependable 23-year-old right-hand batsman for Essex, was facing a 39-year-old Lillee, his greatness restrained by age and a bung ankle, minus the mane and off a much shorter run than at his menacing peak. But there was no mistaking the elegant, poetic whirl of arms and legs, and Lillee could still outwit a batsman with a cold, hard stare and a wipe of the brow from the top of his run up. “Not much was happening in the game. I got to 38. He bowled me a couple of outswingers, nipped one back. LBW,” Stephenson recalled. The following summer, Stephenson was picked for his maiden – and only Test – against Australia at The Oval. He scored 25 and 11 alongside Essex teammate and fellow opener Graham Gooch. “It was the last game at The Oval. The Sixth Test. Batted for quite a long time. Did OK, didn’t do brilliantly. And that was the tradition in those days, you played the last Test and if you didn’t do well, you got discarded,” Stephenson said. “I actually thought I was going to get picked for the following Tour in the Caribbean. I didn’t.” In November 1990., he was thrown a false Test lifeline. “I was playing for the Gold Coast Dolphins in the grade competition and (England manager) Micky Stewart called me and at the time I was working at a bottle shop in Currumbin. He said you have to come up to the Gabba because you are playing (in the Test),” he said. “Goochie was injured anyway and then Alec Stewart and Allan Lamb had injuries. “I was that close to playing but they miraculously recovered just before the toss – and they delayed the toss by about 10 minutes. And then I didn’t play in that one.” Stephenson’s career was still one of high achievement. He played more than 600 first-class and Lisa A matches. At first-class level he made 14,773 runs, struck 25 centuries and 78 half tons at an average of 32.39. He also took 396 wickets as a right-arm medium bowler at 32.55. He retired from FC cricket in 2006 and stepped into a career in administration that has now led to the WACA. He spent 17 years at the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the traditional home of cricket, in a number of roles including elite cricket, membership, facilities, the redevelopment of the Lord’s ground, and community programs, prior to becoming the general manager of the London Spirit men’s and women’s teams. He had three years as CEO at his old stomping ground of Essex, during which he secured a women’s tier one team and developed a clear vision and master plan for the County’s iconic cricket ground in Chelmsford, that same place he fell to Lillee all those years earlier. Now, at 59, Stephenson has beaten a field of Australian and international candidates to replace Christina Matthews as CEO of WA Cricket. Looking across the WACA, with the $163m redevelopment as his backdrop, Stephenson gestures to the historic scoreboard, where the greats of WA cricket adorn the first XI. He rattles off a few WA greats he played against: Geoff Marsh, Justin Langer, Tom Moody, Lillee and Terry Alderman, who he reckons got him three times. “Two LBWs and a caught in slip from memory,” he said. Stephenson fell in love with the game as a boy growing up in the village of Stebbing, in the Uttlesford district of northern Essex, and recalls listening to a crackling BBC Radio broadcast from his room late at night. “My parents didn’t know I was listening to the Ashes all night. And I used to listen all night. I’d watch grainy television footage from the WACA, the 1974-75 series ingrained on my mind. And I have great memories of Dennis Lillee bowling to Viv Richards here in 1975-76,” he said. Stephenson is on a whirlwind trip to Perth to meet players, staff, the board, members at Wednesday’s AGM, and get a feel for his new home before jetting back to the UK before he returns full-time in November with his wife of 30 years Fiona. The pair have two daughters, Lidie, 27, and Millie, 24. Stephenson is in awe of what WA Cricket has achieved off and on field, a triple-double of Sheffield Shield and one-day titles, five Big Bash championships, and incredible growth in the women’s game. “Everyone has done an incredible job. Everything is linked. Whatever Christina was doing has had a knock on effect on performance, putting the right people in the right places, the team has done incredibly well on the pitch,” he said. “I am just hoping they have everything at their disposal to continue that sustained success and I will do everything I can to make sure that happens. “Developing your own talent is key to success. For WA, cricket facilities have been restricting them. At Essex it was more to do with finances. And our success at Essex was more based on producing our own and having that conveyor belt of talent coming through. “I can see that happening here – investment in pathways, community cricket, growing the game and enthusing the next generation through success at the top – because that must trickle down. “Everything they are doing at elite level it inspires the next generation.” He describes as “huge” the $163 refurbishment of the WACA’s northern precinct, which will transform the iconic venue into a 10,000 seat, multi-sport and community facility, but WA Cricket hopes it will also provide a steady income stream. “I know WA Cricket wants to become more self-sufficient. I think they do pretty well anyway in terms of the percentage of the revenue they produce themselves compared to what Cricket Australia gives them (they receive about 55 per cent of their income from CA),” Stephenson said. “They are doing well compared to other States. “We have the same challenge in the UK with Counties. We get measured the same way on what percentage of revenue is from the ECB and how much is generated by yourself. “The ground redevelopment will massively help with those revenue streams coming through.” Stephenson is well versed in the member discontent that has bubbled at the WACA, having begun a redevelopment at Lord’s in 2007 that involved the installation of retractable floodlights which met strong resistance from local St John’s Wood residents. The Lord’s upgrade involved negotiations with local government, members, stakeholders and as, Stephenson said, “bringing everyone on board”. “The difference is the MCC can afford to do it without external funding. Big difference,” he said. WA Cricket received $139.7 million from the Federal, State and Local Governments and $4m from Cricket Australia towards the redevelopment. Stephenson hasn’t started yet, but is aware one of his priorities will be to address division at both board level and a small, but loud membership group, over the redevelopment, with cost blowouts including ground contamination. “I love the whole engagement with members part of the job,” he said. “It is really important to bring everyone on the journey. “But we have to embrace innovation and move forward. Having received that sort of money from the government, we need to find a way of (building) a ground where the members feel they belong, but blend it with the community and making it a more outward facing community aspect. The two can co-exist very, very comfortably. “The reward for that is making West Australian cricket more self-sufficient and making our success on the pitch more sustainable and also being part of a great regeneration of East Perth.”