Wisden overview
One of the young hopefuls thrown in at the deep end in the late 1970s when Australia's best players were contracted to World Series Cricket, Rick Darling looked the part in his early outings at Test level. With unruly blond hair straggling out from beneath a white helmet, he loved to hook and pull, and smacked 65 and 56 on his Test debut, against India at Adelaide in 1977-78. The following season he outshone Kim Hughes with a forthright 91 at Sydney. But in the next Test, on his home ground at Adelaide, Darling almost died when he was hit under the heart by a bouncer from Bob Willis. England's John Emburey remembered his pre-tour medical training, and administered a "pre-cardial thump" which restarted Darling's breathing. Before this incident it had been his running between the wickets - often in partnership with fellow kamikaze-kid Graeme Wood - that had seemed more likely to cause heart failure. Darling, who was a descendant of the pioneer Aussie captain Joe, played a few more Tests, but couldn't force his way into the national side once the Packer players returned to the fold - despite enjoying his best season with the bat (1011 runs at 72 in 1981-82) and taking a century off the Indian tourists four years later, in what turned out to be his final first-class season. A definite case of what-might-have-been. Steven Lynch

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