Dennis Lillee to me, yesterday, over the blower, as I sat in the carpark:

“Is that you, Fitzy?”

(Fitzy? FITZY?)

Yes, Mr Lillee, it is me, all these years on. Now 63 but, talking to you, still that 10-year-old boy inside!

DK Lillee, The GREAT MAN!

The guts of it is that Australia’s most revered fast bowler of all time is coming back to Sydney and the SCG for his first public appearance in nigh on a decade, speaking at a dinner for The Chappell Foundation on the evening of Wednesday 30 April.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” he starts, “speaking at such a worthy cause ...”

Dennis Lillee in full flight.Credit: Fairfax Archive

Yes, yes, yes, Mr Lillee. But can we bring it back to me, for a moment, please?

I mean, do you, or do you not, happen to remember looking out to your adoring fans on the SCG hill, over 50 years ago, and seeing a shy 10-year-old in a white, terry-towelling hat standing on his Mum and Dad’s wicker picnic basket to be the same height as my three brothers, shyly joining in the chant, “Lillleee! Lilleee! Lilleee!” as you walked back to your mark?

“That was you? Yes, I do remember you! I knew it the moment I met you.”

I knew it!

(I MC-ed for him at some lunches and dinners a couple of decades ago, through Brissie, Sydney and Melbourne, and am embarrassingly touched that he remembers. “Fitzy”. He........

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