The Establishment Boys

<p><span style=color: rgba(88 89 91 1)>Monday 9 May 1977 was an historic moment for world cricket. It was the day Kerry Packer announced he'd bought the cream of Australia's cricketing talent to play in his own private competition.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(88 89 91 1)>Over the next two years the game became bitterly divided between two parallel competitions: the rock-star realm of Packer's World Series Cricket and traditional Test cricket now depicted as stodgy and obsolete. While Packer and his glamorous brigade won the war Test cricket survived due to those who carried the Australian banner for the game: younger poorly paid men representing their country.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=color: rgba(88 89 91 1)>Those players became known as the Establishment Boys. Many of their names have long been forgotten and their deeds lost in the footnotes of Australian cricket history. Here ABC journalist and former cricketer Barry Nicholls tells their story at last.</span></p>