When Bruce Yardley had the spine of a Caribbean sea urchin removed from his foot, he thought that was the end of the pain.
Little did he know, just before his fifth Test match for Australia in 1978, more pain was to follow.
But the pain was mixed with some pleasure for Yardley, who died on Wednesday, aged 71, after a prolonged battle with cancer.
It was March, 1978, when Yardley trod on a black sea urchin on a West Indian beach.
The mishap placed him in doubt for the third Test of the series, and Yardley's fifth in the baggy green, in Bridgetown.
But after the urchin's spine was removed from his foot, Yardley played - and played himself into Australian cricket folklore.
Against the mighty Windies fast bowlers - Andy Roberts, Colin Croft and Joel Garner - the gregarious West Australian produced the knock of his life with the bat.
Yardley smacked 74, his highest Test score. He was also smacked around by the Windies pacemen, copping blows to an elbow, his throat and a foot.
"When I got hit in the elbow I thought my whole arm was gone," Yardley recalled.
"And I can't have been thinking too straight because the next ball I tried to hook and it hit me in the throat."
Yet Yardley returned fire with fire, reaching his half-century from just 29 balls - the quickest Test half-century by an Australian.
The record stood for 39 years until David Warner eclipsed it in 2017 and goes some way to summing up Yardley the cricketer - effervescent, aggressive, entertaining.
Yardley played 33 Test matches, taking 126 wickets with his offspin - he converted to the tweaking trade after starting as a medium-pacer.
"As a player, it took him more than 10 years of persistence playing first-class cricket to find the art of off-spin, earning him a Test debut at the age of 30," Cricket Australia chief executive Kevin Roberts said in a statement.
Nicknamed 'Roo' for his bouncy gait, Yardley's bold 74 against the Windies was one of his four Test half-centuries.
Also renowned as a brilliant gully fieldsman, Yardley's attacking cricket and affable nature won many admirers.
"Bruce was a significant figure in Australian cricket, contributing in many ways on and off the field," Roberts said.
West Australian Yardley, who took 344 wickets in 105 first-class matches, became Sri Lanka's coach in the late 1990s.
While coaching Sri Lanka, a melanoma was discovered behind Yardley's left eye but it did not spread.
But in 2016, he was again diagnosed with cancer.
