Kerry Packer tried to pick Michael Hussey for 2005 Oval Test

Kerry Packer made a personal attempt to have the chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns rush Michael Hussey into the Australian team for the pivotal final Test of the 2005 Ashes series at The Oval in place of Damien Martyn, a new book has revealed.For decades, legends have swirled around the contention that Packer's place in Australian cricket was so powerful as to have him capable of choosing players for the national team himself, but this is the first such instance publicly revealed by one of the many administrators who worked with him.In Bradman & Packer: The Deal That Changed Cricket, to be released this week to mark 40 years since Packer personally met with Don Bradman in Adelaide on February 13, 1979 to end the World Series split, the former Cricket Australia chairman Bob Merriman conveyed the story of a phone call he received from Packer in the lead-up to the Oval Test. I had a more low-key start against the West Indies, and I didn't handle my emotions well at all in that Test match [in Brisbane], so I don't know how I would've handled my emotions playing against England in the final Test of that 2005 Ashes series."The year of the Oval Test was also Packer's last, as he negotiated a final broadcast deal with CA and then died on Boxing Day, an event that went on to inspire Hussey to one of his greatest innings, a century as part of a 107-run tenth-wicket rearguard with Glenn McGrath on the 27th, after Packer's death at 68 had been announced and observed by a minutes silence before play."I think back with a lot of fondness at the day I scored a hundred at the MCG with Glenn McGrath, the day after Kerry Packer died," Hussey said.