Len Pascoe

Leonard Stephen Pascoe (born Leonard Stephen Durtanovich, 13 February 1950)[1] is a former Australian Test and One Day International cricketer.

Born at Bridgetown, Western Australia, Pascoe was educated at Punchbowl Boys' High School in New South Wales, where he was a classmate of Jeff Thomson.[2] 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.[3] In the 1980 Centenary Test at The Oval 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.[4][5] 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 and Greg Chappell, 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.[5] He once stated, tongue-in-cheek that "a tiger never changes its spots" (in response to wicketkeeper Rod Marsh’s comment “I thought you were going to bowl more bouncers”).[5]

Pascoe has spoken of an incident when he hit an Indian cricketer 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.[6]

In November 2017, after returning home from a tour of South Australia and Western Australia with former teammates Doug Walters 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.[7]