Leonard Stephen Pascoe (born Leonard Stephen Durtanovich, 13 February 1950) is a former Australian

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

and

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er. Born at

Bridgetown, Western Australia Bridgetown is a town in the South West (Western Australia), South West region of Western Australia, approximately south of Perth on the Blackwood River at the intersection of South Western Highway with Brockman Highway to Nannup, Western Austra ...

, Pascoe was educated at Punchbowl Boys' High School in

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, where he was a classmate of

Jeff Thomson Jeffrey Robert Thomson (born 16 August 1950) is a former Australian cricketer. Known as "Thommo", he is one of the fastest bowlers in the history of cricket; he bowled a delivery with a speed of 160.6 km/h against the West Indies in Perth ...

. The two of them would form a close friendship, playing cricket together at club, state and Test level. Pascoe played in 14 Tests and 29 ODIs between 1977 and 1982, during which time he transferred to

World Series Cricket World Series Cricket (WSC) was a commercial professional cricket competition staged between 1977 and 1979 which was organised by Kerry Packer and his Australian television network, Nine Network. WSC ran in commercial competition to establishe ...

. In the 1980

Centenary Test Centenary Test refers to two matches of Test cricket played between the English cricket team and the Australian cricket team, the first in 1977 and the second in 1980. These matches were played to mark the 100th anniversaries of the first Test cr ...

The Oval The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...

in London, he took 5/59 in the 1st innings. Pascoe retired from international cricket due to a knee injury after the 1981/82 Frank Worrell Trophy series in Australia. Pascoe is the son of a Macedonian immigrant father. While a former NSW teammate, Geoff Lawson, claimed in his autobiography that Pascoe was often subject to baiting about his ethnicity during matches, especially from brothers

Ian Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name (Yohanan, ') and corresponding to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. It is a popular name in Sc ...

and

Greg Chappell Gregory Stephen Chappell (born 7 August 1948) is a former cricketer who represented Australia at international level in both Tests and One-Day Internationals (ODI). The second of three brothers to play Test cricket, Chappell was the pre-eminen ...

, this was contradicted by Pascoe in court, under oath in a defamation case, when he stated that such comments were never made. He is a popular

after-dinner speaker Public speaking, also called oratory or oration, has traditionally meant the act of speaking face to face to a live audience. Today it includes any form of speaking (formally and informally) to an audience, including pre-recorded speech delive ...

. He once stated, tongue-in-cheek, that "a tiger never changes its spots" (in a sarcastic response to

wicket-keeper The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...

Rod Marsh Rodney William Marsh (4 November 1947 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian professional cricketer who played as a wicketkeeper for the Australian national team. Marsh had a Test career spanning from the 1970–71 to the 1983–84 Australian ...

's comment "I thought you were going to bowl more

bouncers A bouncer (also known as a doorman or door supervisor) is a type of security guard, employed at venues such as bars, nightclubs, cabaret clubs, stripclubs, casinos, hotels, billiard halls, restaurants, sporting events, schools, concerts, ...

"). Pascoe has spoken of an incident when he hit Indian cricketer

Sandeep Patil Sandeep Patil ( ; born 18 August 1956) is a former Indian cricketer, Indian national age group cricket manager and former Kenya national team coach, who guided the underdogs to the semi-finals of the 2003 World Cup. He was a hard-hitting midd ...

during the 1981–82 series, which he has stated changed him as a cricketer and stated afterwards that he wanted to retire, which he did after playing another three Tests. In November 2017, after returning home from a tour of South Australia and Western Australia with former teammates

Doug Walters Kevin Douglas Walters (born 21 December 1945) is a former Australian cricketer. He was known as an attacking batsman, a useful part-time bowler, and also as a typical ocker. In 2011, he was inducted into the Cricket Hall of Fame by the CA. ...

and Jeff Thomson, it was reported that Pascoe had been diagnosed with an infection of '' cryptococcal gattii'' and had to spend three weeks in a hospital in Sydney for treatment. In January 2020, Pascoe encouraged singer/songwriter Matt Scullion to write a song about the 1868 Aboriginal cricket tour to England, having been talking to

Gamilaraay The Gamilaraay, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Aust ...

elder and retired cricketer Les Knox about the event. Scullion wrote the song, titled "1868", and sung it at the second

Twenty20 International A Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of cricket, played between two of the international members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), in which each team faces a maximum of twenty overs. The matches have top-class status and are the ...

at the

Sydney Cricket Ground The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) is a sports stadium in Sydney, Australia. It is used for Test cricket, Test, One Day International and Twenty20 cricket, as well as, Australian rules football and occasionally for rugby league, rugby union and as ...

in early 2021, and planned to do so again at the Bradman Museum in April 2021.

References

1950 births Living people Australia One Day International cricketers Australia Test cricketers New South Wales cricketers World Series Cricket players Australian people of Macedonian descent Australian cricketers People from Bridgetown, Western Australia Cricketers from Western Australia {{Australia-cricket-bio-1950s-stub