SECRETS are not kept easily within international sport. Yet in 1977, such was the power of Kerry Packer’s personality and the breathtaking impact of his plans, several dozen cricketers shared silent knowledge of an imminent revolution. The pact endured until a garden party in Brighton one Saturday night in early May.

Tony Greig was Packer’s lieutenant, enlisted after the Centenary Test in Melbourne. He was also England captain, a conflict of interests unparalleled in sporting history. That April, over dinner, Greig had told his agent, Reg Hayter, and his ghostwriter (myself) of his new allegiance.

Reg’s face fell as fast as the business he was about to lose, but his shock was not mercenary. Hayter, my employer at the time, was a traditionalist and now, at Greig’s insistence, we were to be co-conspirators in the hijacking of the game.

The touring Australians, most of whom had also signed up with Packer, played their third match at Hove. Greig threw a party and I was a guest. Late in the evening, he called me over. Too many people were talking, he said. The secret had to come out.

Sunday was fraught and frantic. Calls from Brighton to Australia, press statements drafted and discarded and finally, the controlled leaking of a story that was to reverberate around the cricketing world.

Greig was widely considered a traitor and Packer a parasite, yet neither could understand the vitriol. Both were to be vindicated, though only after a tortured saga.

One November night in 1978 was to secure the success of Packer’s venture and much more besides. He had finally acquired the use of the Sydney Cricket Ground and, crucially, the right to install floodlights. What followed changed the game for ever. When police closed the gates, with 44,000 inside, Packer took it upon himself to open them again and allow thousands more in free. Hundreds crouched in aisles and stairways, agog at the spectacle of night cricket.

When the crowd had dispersed dizzily on to Sydney’s streets, I found Packer sitting alone on the top tier of the members’ stand. Quietly, with barely a smile, he said: “It’s been an encouraging start.”

Those who demonised him refused to acknowledge that he actually enjoyed cricket. One scorching morning in Sydney, he even turned up to watch his Australian side practise. Packer, in polo shirt and baggy blue shorts, was recruited as thrower for the slip-catching routine. For half an hour this balding giant of a man behaved like a schoolboy.

This was not his habitual persona. He could be brusque and intimidating. I interviewed him once in his Sydney office, where pictures of elephants decorated the wall. Detractors would have considered this apt. Today they may look on him more kindly.