Half term at what seems a fun place to go to school. It ain’t Hackney community college. Large crowds, several hundred strong picnicked along banks above the boundary.
The boys, lovely of the field, played the game hard- a bit too Aussie. Three or four Bradfieldians turned on our opening bat for edging one and not walking. Their barbs got a bit out of hand and umpires told them to shut up. They didn’t and things got worse.
I went out to bat and asked my partner what was going on. He said “I’ve come here to show these boys how the game is played and they are fucking swearing at me. It’s not bloody on. They reckon I middled one to the keeper”.
“Did you”?
He smiles and says “I might have”.
Grown man rows with schoolboys and enjoys it. Am shocked, shocked, shocked by it all. The fact that he was a pupil there thirty years ago makes their sparring all the more amusing.
I had a shocker. Couldn’t lay bat on ball. Tried to smash everything. Eventually run out deliberately. As I walked off I heard a muffled sorry.
“Mate you’ve done me a favour”, I said.
I trudged off quietly knowing what was wrong. From the day I picked up a cricket bat, I’ve found the game delightfully simple- at times, not that often- so long as I was balanced. Balance comes and goes without reason or explanation.
There is an explanation; only I have never found it. There have been remedies but none have proved long lasting. I have tried everything- conventional and unorthodox. At the crease I feel twisted and disjointed. I look perfectly balanced to observers but in my eye, I‘m looking down the wicket like the leaning tower of Pisa. One hip feels like its carries all my body weight while my other leg rocks like a wobbly table leg.
But then inexplicably with a tap of the bat to the ground everything suddenly feels right. I have tried to remember every aspect of my stance at such rare moments. Hand, feet, eye, arm, positions are all meticulously memorised. Just when I think I’ve got the perfect set up, a ball comes along to prove that I haven’t. Girlfriend filmed today’s innings. It was the first time I’d seen myself bat on film. I was hooked. I hit pause, replay, pause again, play over and over again.
The camera stuck to my hand. I kinda get the thrill of amateur porn now. You feel the gratification of seeing yourself on film just like the pros. Professional cricketers will never know how novel and addictive it is to watch yourself bat. They’ve seen it on TV countless times. What joy does David Gower get from watching himself bat? He’s seen himself thousand of times before. In ‘Many a Slip’, a diary about average club cricketers Gideon Haigh writes of the unexpected and inexplicable pleasure he feels when he plays a shot good players take for granted : “I feel get more value from cricket, than, say Mark Waugh. He’ll never derive as much satisfaction as I do from stroking the ball through extra cover, because he does it well and I don’t. He expects to hit the ball where he intends; for me there remains the enchantment of surprise.”
Gideon, get a camera mate. Once you’ve seen yourself hit that cover drive on film, the magic, the sheer surprise that you made contact is there for you to relive as often as you wish. That elation you felt is never lost. You can watch the footage, marvel till your heart’s content, believe or disbelieve, pinch yourself and ask yourself did I really play that shot?