KEY POINTS:
Ninety-one years ago, the cricketing gods sent New Zealand someone really special - a batsman of elegant power, a lovely field, clever captain and, best of all, a cricketing brain close to the genius class.
All those gifts were stowed away when Merv Wallace died on Friday night.
There will be sadness around the cricket world, especially in Auckland and New Zealand, and from Lord's and England where Wallace walked among his equals.
Sadness, too, that we only saw in New Zealand glimpses of the sublime batting qualities Wallace possessed. He toured England in 1937, again in 1949, leaving the best of his cricket playing lost to the horrors of World War II.
As his international career ended in the mid-1950s, Wallace's ability as a superb analyst of the game shone through. He was called in to coach a New Zealand team in 1956 which had been thrashed in three tests by the West Indies.
In league with his great friend John Reid, Wallace quietly worked his cricketing magic into the minds of a struggling side and they won the fourth test that memorable day at Eden Park.
In the 21st Century, a coach of Wallace's skill and charm would have earned fame and fortune.
But in the 1950s, New Zealand cricket was in the hands of small-minded men. Reid was given youngsters to tour England in 1958. He knew they would be cannon-fodder, unless Wallace was coach.
"He was playing well enough then to be player-coach," said Reid yesterday, "but people in Christchurch could not see that Merv would have been essential."
In 1965, Auckland headed another campaign to have Wallace coach the New Zealanders in England.
Again the people in Christchurch foiled that plan - they had previously and privately decided that the McC would allow one of their coaches, John Ikin, to coach the New Zealanders early in the tour.
Afterwards, Wallace slipped quietly and calmly into the cricketing background, involved with his beloved Parnell club and the Auckland Cricket Society, and taking his sporting pleasure in the development of his son-in-law, Grant Fox, as an international sportsman who could move easily in Wallace's high estate.
While so many of us will mourn, none will feel the pain quite so much as John Reid.
Reid went away with the 49ers as a brilliantly-endowed sportsman, but with a cricketing brain not long out of the shell.
"Merv was so good to me, my mentor, on that tour," said Reid. "He and Martin Donnelly got the runs which kept us afloat in the tour before Bert Sutcliffe found form. Merv went very close to scoring 1000 runs in May and he was also a very skilled captain when given the chance.
"Merv was such a nice bloke, with a marvellous cricket brain, and there were many days and nights when he would get us together in a bedroom and, with a food parcel as a wicket, show us how to play such-and-such an off-spinner, or seamer.
"He was a great man but, sadly, the forgotten man of New Zealand cricket. Fortunately, he was here long enough to receive the Halberg lifetime award a few weeks ago."
Now he is where he belongs - back among the real masters of the game.
WALTER MERVYN WALLACE
Born: December 19, 1916
Died: March 21, 2008
NEW ZEALAND:
Tests 13
Innings 21
Runs 439
50s 5
Average 20.90
FIRST CLASS:
Matches 121
Innings 192
Runs 7757
50s 43
100s 17
Average 44.32
AUCKLAND:
Matches 47
Innings 72
Runs 3261
50s 18
100s 8
Average 48.67
