Bill Johnston, the left-arm fast and finger-spin bowler who was Australia's equal leading Test wicket-taker on the 1948 Invincibles tour, died on Friday aged 85. In The Australian, Mike Coward describes Johnston's path to the big time.

Although passionate about the game as a schoolboy at Ondit and Colac High Schools, his early cricket was played on the family dairy farm and for the Beeac town team - especially during country week - and he did not see a Sheffield Shield match before he made his debut against Queensland at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in December 1945. And he had seen just one Test match before being chosen for the inaugural series with India in 1947-48 when he took 16 wickets at 11.37 to assure himself of a trip to England in 1948. Ace slow bowler Bill "Tiger" O'Reilly once quipped: "As a bowler he has one failing - he hasn't a temper."