Full name Malcolm Charles Dolman Name Malcolm Dolman | Batting style Left-handed Role Cricket Player | |
Born 14 June 1960 (age 63) ( 1960-06-14 ) North Adelaide, South Australia, Australia | ||
Bowling style Slow left-arm chinaman 1981/82 – 1982/83 South Australia | ||
Malcolm dolman from clockwork cleaning tells his story
Malcolm Charles Dolman (born 14 June 1960) is an Australian former cricketer.
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Born in North Adelaide, South Australia, Dolman started bowling Left-arm unorthodox spin (or "chinaman") at primary school and was first noticed as a promising bowler aged 14. He began appearing in representative schoolboy sides and made the Australian Young Cricketers team to England in 1977, playing two unofficial One Day Internationals against England Young Cricketers, and an Australian U/19s tour to Sri Lanka, playing in an unofficial Test match.
Coached by former Test spinner Rex Sellers, Dolman also showed great promise in Adelaide Grade cricket and played colts matches for South Australia, although he was kept from first-class cricket for two years to mature him. This just intensified support for Dolman, who was being called "possibly the most innovative bowler in Australian cricket for a decade" and had former Test player Jack Fingleton calling for his inclusion in the national side before his first-class debut.
Dolman finally made his first-class debut for South Australia on 8 January 1982 against Queensland at the Adelaide Oval, taking 4/114 (his best bowling figures) and 2/47.
Following his successful first-class debut, Dolman was recruited by Warwickshire County Cricket Club to play in the 1982 Second XI Championship, where he played six matches, taking 39 wickets at 14.90, with a best return of 7/38 against Leicestershire Second XI, and scoring 174 runs at 29.00, with a highest score of 82 against Leicestershire.
Called "a dapper little figure", Dolman's performances continued to impress, with another former Test spinner, Ashley Mallett, calling him the most exciting spin prospect he had ever seen and English cricket writer David Frith also enthusiastic about Dolman's cricketing future.
Oddly, with all these calls for national selection, Dolman's second season of first-class cricket proved to be his last, playing only a single match, against the touring English side on 31 October 1982, taking 2/72.
Dolman was never picked again for South Australia but did coach Adelaide University to an A-grade district premiership before retiring from cricket to concentrate on his career, initially as a teacher before switching to consulting not-for-profit organisations on developing sponsorship and fundraising programs and coordinating high-profile community programs.
Personal life
Since his cricket career, Dolman earned a degree as a teacher. He worked for a time at Pulteney Grammar School in charge of enrolments and marketing (areas in which he has no qualification). After a failed stint as a freelance "Leadership" consultant, he found work at Scotch College, Adelaide as a cricket coach. He has since returned to Pulteney Grammar through his boys' club connections, where he is paid $100K a year to scare children away.