I should have listened to the missus

I should have listened to the missus

I'll make it brief. I was lucky enough to have had my binoculars with me on the Sunday of the 1st Ashes Test at Brisbane back in November. The Gestapoesque Australian Gabba Ground Authorities (Gaggas) had managed to overlook them in their searches. Probably because of the massive queues they were causing. I'd been looking at the huge cracks in the pitch no doubt along with others such as Shane Warne. There wasn't a lot of entertainment going on as the Aussie Children were not playing their equivalent of Kwik Cricket. Even Duncan Fletcher was having to find his own entertainment on his lap top. Perhaps he was airbrushing out the events of the morning. You know by pushing Strauss' hook over the boundary and moving Bell's bat a little so that he got an edge on to his pad.
The ground staff were pointing out the cracks to a couple of the policemen who were hovering. Perhaps they were suggesting that they could stash the trumpets, bugles and trombones and other dangerous weapons that they had removed from the Barmy Army. Michael Atherton was standing by the stumps at our end. His pockets seemed to be bulging. Despite the lack of instruments I heard the Barmies start up the Theme from 'The Great Escape'. Athers put his hands in his pockets, and with trousers slightly raised he strutted off down the pitch following the lines of the cracks. You don't think so surely! I know he has form but I thought that he was filling in for the little Aussie cricketers not filling in the cracks.
The bloke on the gate who missed my binocs didn't miss the ice bricks in my cold bag. I'd read about the Gaggas not allowing in backpacks. In fact on the first day the security bloke complimented me on 'Having listened to us' as he waved me through with my small 'Eskie'as I think they call them Down Under, that the missus had kindly packed for us. This morning's Gagga told me that I was very fortunate as my eskie was 'Only just small enough'. Obviously the Aussie children were not so lucky. I watched our two Cs, Collingwood and Cook enter the arena. They were only just behind the eleven Aussie Cs who were cheered on by the twenty odd Aussie B's who shared the stadium with us Brits or PBs as they lovingly call us.
The security people at the Adelaide Oval were more like human beings. They still searched your bags but they didn't look on us as potential violent thugs. On the Sunday Lunchtime of this Test Match I'd been to the market up the road to buy some pressies. I'd bought a fired tile off a stall run by Glenda Bowen. It depicted Pontin getting out at Brisbane. She does great stuff. If you don't believe me look at her website www.geocities.com/digitita/cricketaction.html. Anyway as I offered my bag for the search, the guy came across the tile. 'What's that, mate?' he asked. 'That's something that I will look at longingly and savour', I replied. 'That's Pontin getting out.''Take a good look', he said, 'You won't see that again'.
The Gabba Gagga bloke I'd willingly add to my list of people to whom I'd enjoy bowling bouncers.There’s only one batsman that I ever wanted to hit. Not that I would have bowled a deliberate beamer, even to him. I was about 19. The Police were looking for an arsonist who was wreaking havoc in my home town. Apparently somebody was seen to leave the scene on a ‘rusty bike’. You guessed it, just like mine. It was a ‘Blue Streak’ with drop handlebars and Disraeli gears. I used to leave the bike propped up outside the house. I never bothered to padlock it; you didn’t need to. This was Cornwall and it was forty years ago. Besides unlike its namesake it wasn’t combustible. My dad was the first to mention it. One of the people he knew at Mass on a Sunday was a policeman, and he’d brought it to my dad’s attention. Despite a good reference from my dad, a detective came around to interview me. They obviously thought they had a red hot suspect. Who was I to throw cold water on it? You don’t think my earlier years as an altar boy lighting all those candles would count against me do you? The lasting impression of this cop was his shoes. Big brown brogues. He probably interpreted me staring at them as eye avoidance. I cooperated but not in the way he wanted. I didn’t admit to the crimes. I felt it best not to as it wasn’t me who had committed them. Eventually he moved on to the possibility of someone nicking the bike, doing the deed and then returning it to the exact same spot. What an honest arsonist. I think he saw the flaw in his argument. He didn’t accept my ‘I would have missed it if it wasn’t there.’ He definitely didn’t like my ‘I can’t see your brown shoes now,’ when we were eyeball to eyeball ‘but I’d know if they weren’t there. He ended up with ‘You don’t know how lucky you are that you don’t fit the description!’
He didn’t know how lucky he was when he got out first over later that year when he came out to open the batting for the Police team that was playing against our Milk Marketing Board side. I didn’t recognise him but I did recognise those big brown shoes. There was a time I would have toed the line as well as bowled line and length only, but I’d done a bit of growing up during that ‘interview’. I’d deliberately looked at a little spot on the wicket and measured out a very long run in preparation for the next over. I wanted to launch a rocket propelled missile that would strike home to add a further brown or red streak to those shoes. The colour would depend on my choice of target. I wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t given his wicket away deliberately. More yellow than blue. I’ve heard of the good cop bad cop techniques, so I was happy to let the same delivery go to the next batsman. After all it was a Saturday. He could put some holy water on it the following day.

Posted by Mike Kelleher at 14:36