EXTRACT from "10 for 66 and All That" (1958), by ARTHUR MAILEY
It is difficult to realize that a relatively minor event
in one's life can still remain the most important through
the years. I was chosen to play for Redfern against
Paddington - and Paddington was Victor Trumper's club.
This was unbelievable, fantastic. It could never happen -
something was sure to go wrong. A war - an earthquake -
Trumper might fall sick. A million things could crop up in
the two or three days before the match.
I sat on my bed and looked at Trumper's picture still
pinned on the canvas wall. It seemed to be breathing with
the movement of the draught between the skirting. I glanced
at his bat standing in a corner of the room, then back at
the gently moving picture. I just couldn't believe that
this, to me, ethereal and godlike figure could step off the
wall, pick up that bat and say quietly, 'Two legs, please,
umpire', in my presence.
My family, usually undemonstrative and self-possessed,
found it difficult to maintain that reserve which, strange
as it may seem, was characteristic of my father's Northern
Irish heritage.
'H'm,' said Father, 'Playing against Trumper on Saturday.
By jove, you'll cop Old Harry if you're put on to bowl at
him.'
'Why should he?' protested Mother. 'You never know what
you can do till you try.'
I had nothing to say. I was little concerned with what
should happen to me in the match. What worried me was that
something would happen to Trumper which would prevent his
playing.
Although at this time I had never seen Trumper play, on
occasions I trudged from Waterloo across the Sandhills to
the Sydney cricket ground and waited at the gate to watch
the players coming out. Once I had climbed on a tram and
actually sat opposite my hero for three stops. I would have
gone further but having no money I did not want to take the
chance of being kicked in the pants by the conductor. Even
so I had been taken half a mile out of my way.
In my wildest dreams I never thought I would ever speak to
Trumper let alone play against him. I am fairly phlegmatic
by nature but between the period of my selection and the
match I must have behaved like a half-wit.
Right up to my first Test match I always washed and
pressed my own flannels, but before this match I pressed
them not once but several times. On the Saturday I was up
with the sparrows and looking anxiously at the sky. It was a
lovely morning but it still might rain. Come to that, lots
of things could happen in ten hours - there was still a
chance that Vic could be taken ill or knocked down by a tram
or twist his ankle or break his arm....
My thoughts were interrupted by a vigorous thumping on the
back gate. I looked out of the washhouse-bathroomwoodshed-workshop window and saw that it was the milkman who
was kicking up the row.
'Hey !' he roared - 'yer didn't leave the can out. I can't
wait around here all day. A man should pour it in the
garbage tin - that'd make yer wake up a bit!'
On that morning I wouldn't have cared whether he poured
the milk in the garbage tin or all over me. I didn't belong
to this world. I was playing against the great Victor
Trumper. Let the milk take care of itself. I kept looking at
the clock. It might be slow - or it might have stopped! I'd
better whip down to the Zetland Hotel and check up. Anyhow,
I mightn't bowl at Trumper after all. He might get out
before I come on. Or I mightn't get a bowl at allafter
all, I can't put myself on. Wonder what Trumper's doing this
very minute ... bet he's not ironing his flannels. Sends
them to the laundry, I suppose. He's probably got two sets
of flannels, anyway. Perhaps he's at breakfast, perhaps he's
eating bacon and eggs. Wonder if he knows I'm playing
against him? Don't suppose he's ever heard of me. Wouldn't
worry him anyhow, I shouldn't think. Gosh, what a long
morning! Think I'll dig the garden. No, I won't - I want to
keep fresh. Think I'll lie down for a bit . . . better not,
I might fall off to sleep and be late.
The morning did not pass in this way. Time just stopped. I
couldn't bring myself to doing anything in particular and
yet I couldn't settle to the thought of not doing anything.
I was bowling to Trumper and I was not bowling to Trumper. I
was I early and I was late. In fact, I think I was slightly
out of my mind.
I didn't get to the ground so very early after all, mainly
because it would have been impossible for me to wait around
so near the scene of Trumper's appearance - and yet for it
to - rain or news to come that something had prevented Vic
from playing.
'Is he here?' I asked Harry Goddard, our captain, the
moment I did arrive at the ground.
'Is who here?' he countered.
My answer was probably a scornful and disgusted look. I
remember that it occurred to me to say, 'Julius Caesar, of
course' but that I stopped myself being cheeky because this
was one occasion when I couldn't afford to be.
Paddington won the toss and took first knock.
When Trumper walked out to bat, Harry Goddard said to me:
'I'd better keep you away from Vic. If he starts on you
he'll probably knock you out of grade cricket.'
I was inclined to agree with him yet at the same time I
didn't fear punishment from the master batsman. All I wanted
to do was just to bowl at him. I suppose in their time other
ambitious youngsters have wanted to play on the same stage
with Henry Irving, or sing with Caruso or Melba, to fight
with Napoleon or sail the seas with Columbus. It wasn't
conquest I desired. I simply wanted to meet my hero on
common ground.
Vic, beautifully clad in creamy, loose-fitting but welltailored flannels, left the pavilion with his bat tucked
under his left arm and in the act of donning his gloves.
Although slightly pigeon-toed in the left foot he had a
springy athletic walk and a tendency to shrug his shoulders
every few minutes, a habit I understand he developed through
trying to loosen his shirt off his shoulders when it became
soaked with sweat during his innings.
Arriving at the wicket, he bent his bat handle almost to a
right angle, walked up the pitch, prodded about six yards of
it, returned to the batting crease and asked the umpire for
'two legs', took a guick glance in the direction of fine
leg, shrugged his shoulders again and took up his stance.
I was called to bowl sooner than I had expected. I suspect
now that Harry Goddard changed his mind and decided to put
me out of my misery early in the piece.
Did I ever bowl that first ball? I don't remember. My head
was in a whirl, I really think I fainted and the secret of
the mythical first ball has been kept over all these years
to save me embarrassment. If the ball was sent down it must
have been hit for six, or at least four, because I was
awakened from my trance by the thunderous booming Yabba who
roared: 'O for a strong arm and walking stick!'
I do remember the next ball. It was, I imagined, a perfect
leg-break. When it left my hand it was singing sweetly like
a humming top. The trajectory couldn't have been more
graceful if designed by a professor of ballistics. The
tremendous leg-spin caused the ball to swing and curve from
the off and move in line with the middle and leg stump. Had
I bowled this particular ball at any other batsman I would
have turned my back early in its flight and listened for the
death rattle. However, consistent with my idolization of the
champion, I watched his every movment.
He stood poised like a panther ready to spring. Down came
his left foot to within a foot of the ball. The bat, swung
from well over his shoulders, met the ball just as it fizzed
off the pitch, and the next sound I heard was a rapping on
the offside fence.
It was the most beautiful shot I have ever seen.
The immortal Yabba made some attempt to say something but
his voice faded away to the soft gurgle one hears at the end
of a kookaburra's song. The only person on the ground who
didn't watch the course of the ball was Victor Trumper. The
moment he played it he turned his back, smacked down a few
tufts of grass and prodded his way back to the batting
crease. He knew where the ball was going.
What were my reactions?
Well, I never expected that ball or any other ball I could
produce to get Trumper's wicket. But that being the best
ball a bowler of my type could spin into being, I thought
that at least Vic might have been forced to play a defensive
shot, particularly as I was almost a stranger too and it
might have been to his advantage to use discretion rather
than valour.
After I had bowled one or two other reasonably good balls
without success I found fresh hope in the thought that
Trumper had found Bosanquet, creator of the 'wrong 'un' or
'bosie' (which I think a better name), rather puzzling. This
left me with one shot in my locker, but if I didn't use it
quickly I would be taken out of the firing line. I decided,
therefore, to try this most undisciplined and cantankerous
creation of the great B.J. Bosanquet - not, as many may
think, as a compliment to the inventor but as the gallant
farewell, so to speak, of a warrior who refused to surrender
until all his ammunition was spent.
Again fortune was on my side in that I bowled the ball I
had often dreamed of bowling. As with the leg-break, it had
sufficient spin to curve in the air and break considerably
after making contact with the pitch. If anything it might
have had a little more top-spin, which would cause it to
drop rather suddenly. The sensitivity of a spinning ball
against a breeze is governed by the amount of spin imparted,
and if a ball bowled at a certain pace drops on a certain
spot, one bowled with identical pace but with more top-spin
should drop eighteen inches or two feet shorter.
For this reason I thought the difference in the trajectory
and ultimate landing of the ball might provide a measure of
uncertainty in Trumper's mind. Whilst the ball was in flight
this reasoning appeared to be vindicated by Trumper's
initial movement. As at the beginning of my over he sprang
in to attack but did not realize that the ball, being an
off-break, was floating away from him and dropping a little
quicker. Instead of his left foot being close to the ball it
was a foot out of line.
In a split second Vic grasped this and tried to make up
the deficiency with a wider swing of the bat. It was then I
could see a passage-way to the stumps with our 'keeper, Con
Hayes, ready to claim his victim. Vic's bat came through
like a flash but the ball passed between his bat and legs,
missed the leg stump by a fraction, and the bails were
whipped off with the great batsman at least two yards out
of his ground.
Vic had made no attempt to scramble back. He knew the ball
had beaten him and was prepared to pay the penalty, and
although he had little chance of regaining his crease on
this occasion I think he would have acted similarly if his
back foot had been only an inch from safety.
As he walked past me he smiled, patted the back of his bat
and said, 'It was too good for me.'
There was no triumph in me as I watched the receding
figure. I felt like a boy who had killed a dove.
posted by Sadiq Yusuf (sidiyus@speedy.acns.nwu.edu) on r.s.c.