Everyone who encountered Duncan Spencer has a tale to tell.In the early 1990s, a golden age of fast bowling, Spencer might have been the quickest of all.Born in Lancashire and raised in Perth, Spencer could have played for either England or Australia if his body had not let him down. The fastest bowler the Ashes rivals never had.
The great Viv Richards said Spencer was up there with the quickest he faced. Ricky Ponting said the same - Spencer and Ponting almost came to blows on the pitch.Ryan Campbell, Durham coach and contemporary of Spencer at Western Australia, said he was “ridiculously and frighteningly fast”. Tom Moody, the former Australia international and another West Australian, said Spencer would “terrorise” batters.
Just before the first Ashes Test, when England recorded their fastest collective day of pace bowling on record, BBC Sport met Spencer at his home in the south-west suburbs of Perth.This is a story of injuries, comebacks and drugs. Most of all, it is a story about the visceral thrill of bowling fast. Like most kids born in the north of England, the young Duncan Spencer kicked a football around. The trouble was, his family moved to Perth when he was five and soccer (his word) had not taken hold in Australia in the early 1980s. Spencer was a batter in junior cricket. He was not usually allowed to bowl because he “bowled the thing everywhere”. It was only in one end-of-season game, when the regular bowlers were missing, that the 14-year-old Spencer got his chance.
“It all just clicked,” he says. Spencer’s pace had been discovered, wickets tumbled and he was on his way through the Western Australian system.“I had the ‘joy’ of playing all of my junior career against Duncan,” says Campbell. “You saw this kid, the run-up, it just looked like it was going to be fast - and he always was. He was faster than everyone else.
“There are only four people in my lifetime I have said are ridiculously fast. That is Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and Duncan Spencer.”Spencer is not a tall man. Even now, at the age of 53, he has hulking shoulders, but a height of 5ft 8in is not ideal for a fast bowler. He had his first back operation aged 17. “I draw a comparison with Mark Wood,” says Moody. “It’s like having a V8 engine in a Mini Minor.” As Spencer was progressing, Daryl Foster was head coach of Western Australia and Kent. When Foster learned of Spencer’s British passport, he signed him to a two-year deal at Canterbury.
Spencer was raw. Just before he went to the UK for the 1993 summer, he bowled 42 no-balls playing for Western Australia against an England A team including Jack Russell, Graham Thorpe, Dominic Cork and Andy Caddick - Spencer got Thorpe out.
On his first return to England since leaving as a child, the 21-year-old Spencer was shocked by the cold and by the county grind. “I’d say to the other guys ‘Are you sore?’” says Spencer. “They’d say ‘No, I’m alright’. I could hardly walk.”
Spencer played one game in the County Championship that summer. He did, however, produce a spell of bowling that is mentioned by anyone who hears his name.In September, Kent and Glamorgan met in the final match of the Sunday League season. They were the top two and the title was on the line. It was also the last List A match in the career of West Indies legend Richards, aged 41.The match was televised live by the BBC - Jonathan Agnew and Vic Marks were on commentary. The footage is easily found online.
