Graham Yallop - "A Lamb To The Slaughter"

"A Lamb To The Slaughter"

Yallop had played just five Tests in the previous three years (for a total of eight) when suddenly, with Australia's best players still playing WSC, he was appointed captain for the 1978–79 Ashes series. These were desperate times, but most observers thought veteran John Inverarity (who was not of test class as a player) would have been a more astute choice once the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) decided that the veteran incumbent Bobby Simpson could not be guaranteed the captaincy for the season.

The unprepared and unsupported Yallop made a naïve prediction before the series when he said that his team would win 6–0. Yallop was "bewildered" when his "flippant" prediction was reported straight-faced by the media and taken seriously by the English players. The undermanned Australian team was annihilated 5–1, its worst thrashing in a Test series. Although Yallop's authority disintegrated, his ability to make runs held up and he scored centuries in the first and last Tests. His 121 in the sixth Test at Sydney was a lone masterpiece as the team scored a meagre total of 198 and the second top score was 16. Yallop led the team in a Test against Pakistan just weeks later and lost again. He injured himself in a club match, which forced him out of the second (and last) Test in the series when Australia finally reversed their losing streak under Kim Hughes. Yallop was then dumped as captain.

At the end of the summer, he wrote a book on his season's experiences, entitled Lambs To The Slaughter. On page one Yallop commented that "I should be bitter, but I am not,". However there were chapter headings such as "Sacked", "The First Killing", "Skinned Alive", "Slaughtered", hinting at an anger and hurt that was left partly unexplained.

In his account of the 1978-79 Ashes series "The Ashes Retained" England captain Mike Brearley reported that the English players nicknamed Yallop "Banzai" because of his tendency to adopt suicidally attacking fields at all times, when on occasion a more defensive approach may have prevented the England team's free scoring.

Yallop kept his place in the team after losing the captaincy, playing all 6 tests in the tour of India in late 1979, the last tests before the WSC reunification.