The shooting star of the Centenary Test

David Hookes, who has died after being assaulted outside a Melbourne hotel, will be remembered for his stunning start in Test cricket. Called up for the Centenary Test in March 1977, he smashed the England captain Tony Greig for five fours in an over to reach 50, and sent the huge Melbourne crowd into a frenzy.

Only 21, long blond hair flapping, brandishing a favourite old taped-up bat and wearing what looked like tennis shoes, Hookes had strolled into the big time on the back of four successive centuries for South Australia. At Melbourne Greig threw the ball up, and Hookes did what he liked best: belted it. No nervousness for him as a maiden half-century approached - he surged from 36 to 56 with those five fours, "all genuine cricket shots" according to Rod Marsh, who was at the other end at the time. Although he was out shortly afterwards, Hookes seemed set for a long international career.

But it never quite happened. An automatic selection for the England tour that followed, he made a few handy scores but his technique, which tended to rely more on eye than footwork, proved fallible. It wasn't an ideal first tour, either, as the existence of World Series Cricket was revealed early on, dividing the 13 signees from the four have-nots who hadn't been thought worthy of the Packer pounds.

Hookes, the bright young thing, was seen as a potential star of WSC. Again he made some runs, but he also received a fearsome thwack on the jaw from Andy Roberts at the Sydney Showground during an early "SuperTest". He came back, helmeted, and regained his Test place when peace broke out in 1979-80. But he was in and out of the side, and had played only 23 matches in all when he was dropped for the last time, in 1985-86 - his last Test, against India at Melbourne, was Steve Waugh's first.

Hookes made just one Test century - 143 not out against Sri Lanka at Kandy in April 1983 - and finished with 1306 runs at 34.36. He took his frustrations out on Australian bowlers instead, and when he retired he was the leading runscorer in Sheffield Shield cricket. He wasn't overly impressed with that record, pointing out that he'd only had the chance to score so many because he didn't play enough Test cricket.

Hookes's other indelible mark on the record books came, naturally enough, in a Shield game. Riled by what he considered a delayed declaration by Victoria, he blasted a 43-minute century in just 34 balls - the quickest-known in anything but contrived circumstances. "The two shots I remember most," he later wrote, " were two successive leg-glanced fours off [Rod] McCurdy. He had shifted his fine-leg fieldsman quite square to cut off the pull or hook shot, and I moved across outside off stump to glance the next two balls to the fine-leg boundary - and knew immediately I couldn't be in better touch."

That was Hookes: on his day, in touch, you couldn't bowl at him.

He retired after the 1991-92 season, with 12,671 runs under his belt at the handy average of 43.99. There were 32 hundreds, one of them a triple - 306 not out against Tasmania at Adelaide in 1986-87, in the course of an Australian fourth-wicket record partnership of 462 with Wayne Phillips. Hookes turned to coaching - at the time of his sudden death he was in charge of Victoria - and an impressively diverse media career. In addition to his cricket commentaries, he was a familiar sight giving his views (and fending off jibes about his receding hairline) on Australian panel shows.

Those thoughts, like his batting, were usually uncomplicated and trenchant, and tinged with a raw humour which occasionally landed him in hot water. David Hookes was a fine batsman and a popular member of the media circus, and he will be widely mourned across Australia.