It was one of the great last-wicket partnerships in Ashes history, but as Jeff Thomson and Allan Border fought to keep the 1982 Boxing Day Test alive, the Aussie change rooms were full of booze and nerves.
The previous four days had featured enthralling cricket, with little between the two teams.
Arriving at the crease was Jeff Thomson. A fearsome prospect when bowling, "Thommo" was much less threatening while wielding the willow."Thommo, some of the time, didn't even bring his bat to practice," Hughes says.At the other end was Allan Border. The future captain, "AB" would become Australia's most dependable batter during the remainder of the decade, but didn't warrant that description at the time.
"Some of the players sat downstairs. At the MCG the [dressing] rooms went down two flights of stairs, and I always liked to watch, and I was upstairs with a few other blokes," Hughes says. "They [Border and Thomson] were both doing an amazing job and the blokes downstairs were 'Molly the Monk' [drunk] because it had taken a fair while."
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