Allegations of abuse towards Indian cricketers at SCG is Australia’s embarrassment

Remember Gladstone Small? Most Australian cricket fans over the age of 40 still do.

Small would probably prefer that it was because of his brilliant fast bowling. But his unusually short neck is the first thing most would recall.

Small’s jerky, idiosyncratic bowling action was one of the most frequently mimicked through his heyday of the mid-1980s and early ’90s.

At the time, there was a musical comedy troupe called The Music Men. Their songs were barely songs, really — more like football terrace chants.

Their hit was called What Can You Play?, a series of imitations that played well on variety shows like Hey Hey it’s Saturday. It had a Gladstone Small bit that always brought the house down. It was a bit of harmless fun.