After World Series Cricket
The 1979/80 season saw the Packer players return to their State sides. Although Davis would play only three Sheffield Shield matches that season batting back down the order at 4. The highlight of his being a score of 112 against the new fully participating Tasmania side at Launceston. He failed to pass 50 in any of his other innings. The 1980/81 season was another relatively poor one for Davis. He played 7 matches scoring just 251 runs, with a top score of 91 not out. He finished the season with an average of 27.88. However NSW, under the captaincy of Rick McCosker, finished runners-up in the table only 3 points behind Western Australia. NSW would finish even closer runners-up in 1981/82 just two points behind David Hookes' South Australia. Davis had his best season since 1976/77 averaging 38 with two hundreds, he had moved back to open the batting. His best innings (133) coming against Tasmania at Hobart. Another century followed in the next match, an 8 wicket win against Queensland (113).
1982/83 proved to be Davis' final first-class season. NSW were again runners-up to Western Australia, this time by four points. But Davis played just twice scoring 87 runs. Davis retired aged just 30. His last first-class match being played on 10 February 1983 against the touring Sri Lankans. He scored 14 runs.
Davis' autobiography was published in 2004. Entitled More Than Cricket the book reveals how Davis, in his role as top executive with Dunlop Slazenger, pioneered protective cricket helmets and the production of modern cricket bat technology. In January 2009 Davis revealed that Slazenger were weeks away from releasing a new bat designed by Danny Waugh, a younger brother of former Test stars Steve and Mark, called the Clubba, in competition with Gray-Nicolls, maker of the only 'double-sided' bat in top level cricket, controversially used by New South Wales and Australia opener David Warner. Davis was quoted, "The Waugh bat has a slightly longer handle for batsmen who go the tonk, no shoulders and a power zone. While we're marketing for the 50-over form of the game, it can also be used for Twenty20." Although the bat was not released with Slazenger Australia's new 2009 range, some of the design features have been included specifically the "power zone" and a flatter back to the bat.
Read more about this topic: Ian Davis (cricketer)
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