10. Cricket, pain and humiliation

The cricket season began here in Cayman three weeks ago and last weekend, I was driving past the Smith Road cricket ground in George Town on my way home.  

I was in no hurry and I stopped to watch a few overs.  Someone was bowling pretty quickly and he hit the batsman full on the foot.  The batsman was obviously in pain and everyone gathered around to see how he was.

It reminded me of a cricket match that I played several years ago that was, without doubt, the least enjoyable of all the 4000+ games of Club Cricket that I calculate I played in the UK before coming to Cayman.  

With each game starting at either 11.30 am or 2.00 pm and finishing at about 7.30 pm and with at least 2 hours drinking and socialising with the opposition after every game, it means that, very roughly, when I played my last game in 2004 at the age of 57,  I had spent about 11% of my waking hours playing in or involved in, cricket matches.

My best playing days were behind me when I played the nightmare match.  On Sundays, I usually played for Finchley's first eleven but one week, the Chairman of the cricket committee asked me if I would captain the 3rd XI in a friendly game on the following Sunday.  

He said that there were four young boys in the side and they needed a mature person to look after them.  Flattered at being called mature, I agreed to do it.

By Sunday, there had been a couple of call-offs and we were not quite as strong as we had been originally and at “meet time” at the club, we only had ten players.  

A first-team player who was playing at home offered the services of his ten-year-old son, James.  He had all his kit with him, as he always did for just such an opportunity.

We had an umpire, Sam and a scorer named Sammy, who was about 15 but hadn’t ever played cricket.   He found the statistics of cricket fascinating though and had learnt to keep score.

So, the might of Finchley Cricket Club 3rd XI set off to play in a park in West London against a side who called themselves ‘Pakistan Eagles’.  We were a convoy of four cars and leading a convoy of cars around London’s North Circular Road on a Sunday afternoon in July when no one knows exactly where they are going, is not easy.

I smoked small cigars in those days and going around a roundabout on to the North Circular Road, I asked Sammy, who was sitting next to me, to pass me a box of matches.  He didn’t but instead, he opened the box, took out a match, lit it and thrust it towards my mouth.  

I was seriously distracted and drove into the curb.  The front tyre exploded with the noise of a million popping paper bags but with great presence of mind, I managed to get the car on to the grass verge.  I got out and surveyed the damage.

The tyre had disintegrated.  Sammy giggled.  I got the jack and set about changing the wheel.  Further down the North Circular, the other three cars had stopped and were causing chaos.  

A police car arrived and the police constable who came over started laughing at my plight and that started Sammy giggling again.

I knew the PC. He opened the bowling for Hornsey, a neighbouring club, and I had scored quite a few runs off his bowling in a league match a few weeks earlier but only after he had hit me on the shoulder with a beamer (high full toss).  He apologised immediately and I accepted it but in my opinion, which I have kept to myself until now, he was too good a bowler for that to have happened accidentally.

The grassy verge was muddy and instead of the front of the car going up, the jack went down into the mud. The PC laughed some more and Sammy’s giggling was getting out of control.

Just when I needed one, I had a brainwave.

“Watch this,” I said.  I went to the pavement carrying a tyre lever and looked for a loose slab that I could lever up and use to rest the jack on - brilliant!  

By the time the spare wheel was on It was 1.50 pm and we had only travelled 100 yards.

We eventually got to the ground at 2.30 and I apologised profusely to the opposition captain who appeared to be about 18 years old.

“I am really sorry we are so late,” I said.  Of course, I lost the toss. 

“OK, we’ll bat,” their captain said, “and is it all right if we play a 40-over game?  My side needs the practice.”  At the end of the first over, they were 18-0 and things were looking ominous.

Their innings seemed to take forever.  We were playing in a park. The nearest impediment to the travelling ball, apart from our fielders (who were hardly an impediment at all), was the park wall which was over 70 yards from the boundary in every direction.  

As they were hitting several boundaries an over, every six-ball-over took at least seven minutes to complete because of the time it took to retrieve the ball.

Their score at tea was 464 – 4.  One of the openers was run out for 211, in the 24th over.  If he had not been so unlucky, he would have probably scored over 400 himself and we would have been "chasing" over 600.  We were told that he had played for Pakistan Under 19 two weeks earlier and scored 80 against Australia Under 19.

As we walked off for tea, Sammy was giggling again.  “Why didn’t you bowl?  That would have been a laugh.”  I said nothing but gave him a look that proved, in case you’ve ever wondered, that looks can’t kill.

I had noticed when we arrived that my spare tyre was losing air and clearly, it either had a leaky valve or a slow puncture.  I decided to go and put some air in it so that I could get home after the game.  

I had intended to open the batting but I didn't and so I told those from 5 to 10 in the order that they would all move down one when I got back. I gave a short motivational and inspirational address that nobody listened to or took any notice of, and then I set off to get air in the tyre.

20 minutes later, I stared at the scoreboard in disbelief. 5-7.  Five runs, seven wickets.  I said nothing but went inside to get ready to bat.  I had just put on my second pad when I heard that another wicket had fallen.  I emerged from the gloom of the pavilion.  

I went out to bat determined to play the innings of my life.  We still had 35 overs and I was going to do it all on my own.  I was to become the stuff of legend.  I would be interviewed by the press. I would be invited on to chat shows.

The wicket had fallen off the last ball of the over and so I was at the non-striker’s end.  I watched, bewildered, as one of our two 12-year-old players (who later played first-class, county cricket and became one of the finest batsmen the club has ever had), played out a maiden.

“What’s going on Sam?” I asked our umpire. “How can we be 8 down?”

“Wait and see,” he said, giving me a look I had never seen before or since.  It was a mixture of pity, concern and amusement.

A lad who appeared to be aged about 20 ran in to bowl at me. I was told later he was 17.  He was only a little more than medium height.

The first ball he bowled at me was the quickest I ever received in my 45-year club-cricket career.  

When I was 20, I batted against Alan Ward - opening bowler for Derbyshire and England; when I was 33, I faced John Snow – opening bowler for Sussex and England and when I was 38, I batted against Wayne Daniel – opening bowler for Middlesex and the West Indies but none of them ever bowled me a ball as quick as that one.

It hit me full on the little toe and the one next to it of my left foot. The pain was awful and, as I lay, writhing in agony, I heard an appeal screamed at full volume.  I almost forgot the pain as I saw Sam signal four runs. 

What?  My bat had been nowhere near the ball. They couldn’t be runs. Surely there had never been a clearer case of leg byes, or more probably, Leg Before Wicket?

Eventually, I got to my feet.  “Are you OK to carry on?” their skipper asked.

I mumbled that I was.  Later that evening after an x-ray in Barnet hospital, I was told that two toes of my left foot had cracked bones.

The second ball I received was as quick as the first one but on off stump.  I judged it to be a half volley and I intended to smack it straight back over his head thinking that would teach him a lesson.  

I was wrong.  It was not a half volley but a ball a little short of a length. I checked my swing, but I still made contact and succeeded in lifting it over the bowler’s head as he followed through.  It should have dropped harmlessly to the ground.

But….that is not what happened.  It was dropping out of the reach of anyone and there was an easy single to be had but I shouted, “No!”  

It was pure altruism on my part.  It was a far, far better thing I did than I had ever done before.  I could not expose a twelve-year-old boy to that bowler, even though he was already a better batsman than I.  I had to see out the rest of the over.

The ball continued on its parabolic path and fell, not on the ground but right on the top of the middle stump.  It then bounced up into the hands of mid-off who was running in: possibly a unique dismissal.

Wilton ct Shakir bowled Younis 4

It was the Waqar Younis who became one of the greatest and quickest bowlers ever to play the game; 373 test wickets for Pakistan in 87 test matches at an average of 23.

As I trudged off (it’s hard to trudge when you have two broken toes) with the score at 9-9, I could see 10-year-old James coming out to replace me, apparently without a care in the world.  He was probably having the same thoughts that I was having five minutes earlier.  I turned and walked over to the captain.

“Look,” I said. “This kid’s only ten.  Will you ask your guy to go easy on him?”

“I’ll have a word.”

I waited and James came and stood next to me.  “What’s going on?” he asked me.

The captain and the bowler were having a lively conversation.

“Hang on a minute,” I said to James. 

The discussion between captain and bowler was getting heated.  Eventually, the captain came over.

“He’s taken nine wickets and he wants to take all ten.  He says that he’s never done it and may never get the chance again.  All this kid has to do is survive four balls.”

“Has anyone else done that?”

“Err, no.”

I thought for a fraction of a second. “Then I declare,” I said.

“Don’t do that,” pleaded James.

“I have!  Go and shower.”

Result: Pakistan Eagles 464 – 4 (innings closed) 

Finchley 3rd XI 9 – 9 dec.  

Pakistan Eagles won by 455 runs.

I don’t know for certain, but I am pretty sure that a number of records were set that day.  There were also two positive aspects:

1. The game finished much earlier than had once seemed likely.

2. I was the top scorer!