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 five 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.
I've also bowled a few pies as well in my time but none of them compared to the Adelaide Floating pie(pictured). If you are over there look out for them and have a g'day.
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