Continued … His snow-white shirt and duck trousers were immaculate, as were his rubber boots. He wore a black waistcoat, unbuttoned, over the shirt. The idea of the waistcoat was quite original - it held his pipe, his tobacco and his matches. It was not unusual in those far off days for a country cricketer to light up and take a few draws on a pipe or cigarette. Nobody took umbrage at it. I saw it happen outback many times.

Indeed I once saw it in first-class cricket on the Sydney Cricket Ground, when Freddie Mair, the gifted all-rounder and Balmain captain for many years, playing for New South Wales against Victoria, let his craving for a few draws get the better of him at the fall of a Victorian wicket. And I seem to recall that he had to get a match from the man fielding at short leg, but I can't remember who that was.

Selby used to slip his big-bowled bent-stemmed Captain Peterson pipe into the top pocket of his unbuttoned waistcoat. His tobacco pouch fitted snugly into the other top pocket, with the tin box holding his Wax Vestas matches in the bottom pocket along with a penknife for cutting the plug of dark 'Conqueror' tobacco.

It would have been senseless for him to field in any position where it might have been necessary to raise an occasional canter. Had he run there would have been a scattering of smoking paraphernalia in all directions. Wisely therefore he placed himself invariably at first slip where he was splendidly covered by a magnificent 'keeper named Tommy Lynam and always supported by an active and mobile second slip.

Very early in the day I got one to lift and bite. Young Bradman edged it and the ball travelled speedily and straight in the direction of Selby's midriff. It would have been an extraordinary effort had the catch been taken. It struck him in the solar plexus just at the moment when he was, with both hands well and truly occupied, lighting his pipe.

Bradman soon gave our skipper a chance to redeem himself by snicking my quicker ball straight to him again. This second time Selby made a manful attempt with both hands to make the catch, but he had blown such a dense cloud of bluish smok& from his startled lungs that he must have lost sight of the ball well before it reached him.

'Sorry Bill,' he called, as if nothing untoward had happened. Selby's inconsistencies in the slips were part and parcel of the Wingello team's programme. I was probably the only one among us who felt that he might have been wise to deny himself just a little longer.

Who in the name of all that is holy could ever possibly hope to get away unscathed when Don Bradman had been given two lives. If I said earlier that I experienced some early worries as the boyish Bradman started his innings by methodical employment of the middle of his bat, I could certainly go much further in describing my own mental reactions as this young man tore the Wingello attack apart.

From the Penguin Book of Sporting Anecdotes, ABC, Penguin, 1996, pp 40-42. For non-Australian youngsters of under 45 years, an explanation of the true point of the tale: the 'Sorry Bill' to Bill O'Reilly, for any who knew of the feisty spinner, would have had them wincing and turning away.