Millionaire media magnate who changed the face of cricket

Kerry Packer, who died on 27 December 2005 at the age of 68, was one of the most powerful and famous men in Australia , thanks largely to his love of a gamble.

After inheriting his father’s publishing business in 1974, Mr Packer turned a collection of assets worth millions into an empire worth billions, making him Australia ’s richest man in the process.

Despite his wealth he remained very much an average Aussie bloke, choosing to spend much of his time watching sport, gambling, socialising with his friends and swearing like a trooper.

Mr Packer will be best remembered for the creation of “World Series Cricket” though, a major coup that split the world of cricket, receiving condemnation at the time, but plaudits later in life.

Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer was born on December 17 1937 in Sydney , Australia , and was the son of Sir Frank Packer, an Australian publishing, media and gaming tycoon who owned the Channel Nine Network.

Despite being born into considerable wealth, Mr Packer endured a cruel childhood in which he was regularly beaten, whilst also contracting polio, which forced him to live in an iron lung for nine months.

Upon leaving school Mr Packer and his brother, Clyde, went to work for the family business, though Clyde was always his fathers favourite, referring to Kerry as " boofhead ".

After his brother left the business and the family in 1972 and the death of his father in 1974, Mr Packer inherited all of the family assets at the age of 37, taking to the role of media tycoon quickly and successfully.

When, in 1977 negotiations to screen test cricket on Channel Nine broke down, Mr Packer approached various high profile cricketers about establishing a break away competition.

England captain Tony Greig and West Indies captain Clive Lloyd were just two cricketers who accepted, due largely to the wages Mr Packer offered, and so “World Series Cricket” began, lasting for three years until Channel Nine regained the rights to screen test cricket.

With its coloured strips and white balls, it changed the face of the one-day game in particular, introducing razzmatazz to what had been a staid, middle-class sport.

In 1987 he enjoyed an amazing slice of luck when he accepted an offer of A$1bn for his Nine Network and embarked on a life of enjoyment and luxury, before then buying the network back three years later following a stock market crash, for just A$200m.

Away from work Mr Packer loved to gamble, though he often used his gambling instincts to negotiate business deals too, and it is rumoured that in London in 1987 he lost £8m playing blackjack, but then won £10m at the same game in Las Vegas eight years later.

A heavy smoker, he suffered his first heart attack in 1990, at which point he was clinically dead for seven minutes, before being resuscitated by ambulance officers.

His health continued to deteriorate and he suffered a second heart attack in 1995, before undergoing kidney transplant surgery in 2000, the organ in question having been donated by his helicopter pilot Nick Ross.

Mr Packer died of kidney failure at home in Sydney with his family by his bedside and was survived by his wife Roslyn and two children, James and Gretel.