'Brash and full of bravado'

I was captain when David Hookes made his debut in the Centenary Test in 1977. He was a very talented cricketer, a positive and creative batsman. He always wanted to take the bowlers on and take the attack to the opposition. He made his mark in first-class cricket for South Australia by scoring five centuries in the 1976-77 season. That was capped off by his selection for the Centenary Test against England.

Both teams were bowled out quite cheaply. We made 138 and then rolled England over for 95. In the second innings David hit Tony Greig for five fours in one over. With that flourish he announced himself on the international scene and turned that game on its head. Up to that point the ball had dominated the bat. It was the youthful exuberance of David that made us realise that the wicket had actually improved since the first two days when we struggled.

He was quite a brash young man, full of confidence and bravado and became quite a mature cricketer later. Having said that, World Series Cricket probably came a bit too soon for him. He was perhaps a bit ill at ease at that level. He coped quite well till he had his jaw broken by Andy Roberts. It was at the Sydney Showground - we weren't allowed to play at the SCG in the first year of WSC. It was a pretty quick wicket and Hookes went to hook Roberts and was hit on the jaw. He was batting without a helmet and fractured his jaw and cheek, and his confidence left him.

I'm not sure he ever fully recovered from that. It really pegged his international career back a bit.

When we went to England in 1977 he did well. He made a couple of good fifties in the Test series. As one of the tyros in the team he did well enough to come out of the tour with his reputation enhanced. Remember, as a team we struggled on that tour of England and lost 3-0. World Series Cricket was announced midway through and David was involved in that.

It was tough cricket for a couple of years for David and it didn't go well that he was hit by Roberts. It took him a long time to get over that, if indeed he ever did. He did come back few weeks later and was immediately bounced. He then hooked Roberts for a boundary, but was batting with a helmet from then on.

David's first-class career went well - he is the highest run-getter in the Sheffield Shield for South Australia, and also led them to victory one season. But more than that, it was his innovative ideas and captaincy that made a difference. I remember a game when South Australia were chasing a stiff target, one that looked out of reach. David was batting with the tail and devised a method where he would deliberately run a few runs short. The field was set back to give him a single. He told the other guy, I can't quite remember who it was, "Every time I run a single, you run two". That way he was getting one run but keeping the strike. That law was subsequently changed.

He was always thinking outside the square. He was a creative thinker and it was no surprise that he made a good career in the media doing radio and television work after he was done with playing cricket. He was in the prime of his life, and it's a tragedy that he had to lose his life over almost nothing. That's one of the hardest things to understand.