Tom Shiner, right arm leg spinner. A character, competitor, irreverent, a magician and the Charlie Chaplin of Sydney Grade Cricket of the 1980s and 90s.

I had the good fortune to play against Tommy and enjoyed the battle immensely. I had the greater fortune of playing with Tommy at Western Suburbs in 1992/93 and 1993/94.

Keeping to Tom was fun. He could bowl all the balls the very best leg spinners speak of. He’s accuracy, pace, spin and zip off the wicket, fooled many and often.

Many speak of Tom talent and performances and how unlucky he was not to play for NSW. Cricket can or does have a funny way of bracketing or typecasting players. Could he have trained harder and worked on his batting and fielding more? Of course he could’ve, but give him the ball and ask him “can we win”….. “just give me the f&^%ing ball, “ and he’d waddle in and deliver.

It would seem Tommy got better with age and as he hit 30, maybe cricket was not a high priority but I would have loved to seen him given the opportunity to play under captains like Ian Chappell, Mark Taylor or Dirk Wellham in first class cricket.

https://www.cricconnect.com/profile/32/paul-ryan/blog/57/tom-shiner-the-quirky-magician