Canterbury Tales - Round 2

Yarras Fifth Eleven: Tim Miller, Vic Nicholas, Stuart McDonald, Amit Mehta, Sam Mitchell-Head, Brian Hannon, Conrad De Souza, Robert Fisher, Gideon Haigh and John Scurry. Absent from photo - David Strachan (Captain).

"It is inevitable that some defeat will enter even the most victorious life. The human spirit is never finished when it is defeated...it is finished when it surrenders"
~ Ben Stein (1944- ) American Actor, writer and political commentator.

This weeks game will be remembered by me for pretty much all the wrong reasons.

For the second week running we batted better than the opposition and somehow conspired to lose. We took nine opposition wickets for the second week running and following on from last week where we lost only five wickets in making our total, we again only lost five wickets in our run chase.

Think about it for a moment – we have taken eighteen opposition wickets and lost only ten. Yet we have somehow lost both games!

This week I had the added distraction of having to wake up earlier than normal two days in a row as I was having my kitchen renovated. So I arrived at Canterbury’s home ground at 11:45am in a less than perfectly refreshed frame of mind.

Strachany rallying the troops.

“No problem” I thought to myself. I am not going into this game under an injury cloud like last week. I at the very least felt A1.

We had some close catching drills to sharpen our reflexes and get everyone switched on. Then we performed a drill whereby the ball is hit out to you from a distance of about thirty five metres so we could run in attack the ball and then throw it in to the keeper.

The first one hit out to me bobbled off the sparse tufts of grass, but I fielded it OK and I sent my return into the keeper. My throwing arm needs a lot of work I might add, but I haven’t had much opportunity to work on my fielding much yet as we have been training indoors so far.

Pre-game catching practice. Johnny Scurry holds a sharp chance.

The next one hit out to me, I again kneeled down to field it when I felt a sharp twinge in both thighs when I got up and threw the ball back to Timmy our keeper. As I went to the back of the queue, I suddenly realized that all was not well. Both my quadriceps were hurting like hell.

I have always laughed at blokes who get injured during a pre-game warm up drill – and as karma is no great friend of mine at times, it was this day that Mr Karma decided to pay me a visit and I had done what I thought was unthinkable – I had incapacitated myself during a pre-game warm up!

As luck was to have it, Strachany won the toss and put the opposition in to bat. Just great! I was going to have to field for forty five overs before testing my now suspect quads while batting.

I usually field at point/gully to right handers and square leg/backward square leg to left handers. As fate would have it, the Canterbury ground is rather large oval with one side being so big that even test players would struggle to belt a four much less a six to that side of the ground. It was to this side of the ground that I was forced into long, long chases that I simply could not give up because they were never going to reach the boundary and a batsman could run a five by the time a ball is returned.

With each chase, my quads started aching more and more. With each kneel to get my body behind a shot coming in my direction, I winced in pain. It got to the point that I was trying to field the ball while just bending my back rather than kneel down. I also waited for the ball to reach me on more than one occasion rather than attack the ball as it was agony to try and field normally. I am sure my team mates must have been wondering – “what the hell is wrong with VB today?” I would have loved to have gone off, but we do not bother with such trivialities like having a substitute fielder. So I had to just endure as best as I could.

Legendary Richmond iron man Francis Bourke receiving treatment back in his playing days. Circa 1980.

Canterbury is a team of classy veterans and some extremely young tyros. One of the Canterbury players is none other than the legendary Australian Football League legend Francis Bourke who played 300 games for Richmond Football Club from 1967 to 1981. Francis Bourke was not only a sublimely skilled footballer, but he also was perhaps as courageous as any player to have ever played the game. Bourke’s ability to continue playing beyond the threshold of pain was legendary having played a game with a broken leg in 1971 which was to subsequently sideline him for nine weeks. Bourke was also involved in another legendary incident in 1980 which entered football folklore when in an important match at Arden Street against North Melbourne Bourke in a collision with a team mate received a gash to his forehead which quickly saturated his face with blood which in turn seeped onto his guernsey. In those days there was no “blood rule” that requires a bleeding player to leave the field until the bleeding is stopped and Bourke shifted to the forward line. Although he could barely see through the oozing blood, he still managed to dive full-length to take a mark and then kick an important goal to ensure Richmond had a narrow win.

Francis Bourke was named on the wing in 1996 in the AFL Team of the Century and in 2005 he was named as one of only four “Immortals of the Richmond Football Club”.

Here he was walking out to open the batting for Canterbury C Grade, sixty two years old, bespectacled, but in my eyes – a legend. To those of us in the know, it was truly a humbling experience just to be on the same playing arena as the great man, to others in our team, I am sure they were wondering what the fuss was all about.

Francis Bourke made his name legend on the football field, but Francis Bourke is also a more than handy cricketer. He batted carefully and with authority and held us at bay for nearly an hour and half in compiling a patient twenty seven before he was dismissed by our surprise packet off spinner Amit Mehta when the great man was bowled by a skidding off break. It was the beginning of an auspicious day for our quiet and humble off spinner who ripped the heart out of the Canterbury top order who had hitherto defied our pace men on a rather benign wicket.

Infact the first ball of day drew puffs of dust from our paceman Stuie “Disco” McDonald. I thought to myself “Uh oh…this is a dry, dead wicket…our bowlers are in for back breaking day today”. I have never seen our pacemen exert so much energy for so little reward. The only positive was that the low, slow bounce was also stymieing the batsmen as well who were finding it difficult to get the ball away.

Conrad got the break through in his first over at first change with a full toss that was spooned to Amit who took a fine catch on what was to prove to be his day. Sometime later as it dawned on Strachany that pacemen were not causing any difficulties to the batsmen, Strachany threw the ball to our off spinners Amit and Gideon Haigh.

Our off spinners are a contrast in style with Gideon firing his off spinners in on a very tight line and length and Amit being a bit more erratic in his approach from bowling the occasional wide and full toss to bowling the odd almost unplayable ball. Amit Mehta took three marvelous wickets with two batsmen bowled and one edging a perfectly flighted off break to Bobby Fisher at first slip who took a first class catch. We were cock-a-hoop and I shouted “shabash” (“well done” in Hindi) to Amit at each celebration. I was genuinely delighted for him as Amit is such a lovely bloke.

Our comedian, errr, captain Strachany then mopped up the Canterbury tail with an inspired spell of seam up medium pace bowling taking three wickets for twenty six. In between Amit’s and Strachany’s heroics, Mark Thomas, one of Canterbury’s “grey power” brigade made an inspired fifty seven when he was involved in one of the more unluckier dismissals of the summer so far. Thomas was at the non strikers end when his fellow batsmen clouted a shot that neatly bisected Gideon and myself at point and cover respectively and raced through to the “fat” side of the ground. I had no option but to give chase in eye watering pain all of the way as my quadriceps felt like they were being ripped out with each stride. As I ran in a goose stepping manner to try and alleviate the pain as much as possible, the Canterbury batsmen seeing my discomfort decided to run a third while I must have been a good sixty five to seventy meters from the stumps. Backing me up was Strachany who was about twenty meters behind me, so I relayed the throw to him and he in turn managed to throw the ball forty plus meters to our keeper Timmy Miller who whipped off the bails with Thomas a foot short.

Simply unbelievable on Strachany’s behalf. Not just the fantastic flat throw, but the fact that he had somehow run all the way around from mid off to back me up was quite remarkable.

Towards the end of the Canterbury innings, I knew that I was in no condition to open the batting, so I informed Strachany to drop me down the order to number five – where with some rest, I figured that I might be able to bat with out much discomfort. This was more in hope than in logic.

Canterbury finished up 9 for 179 leaving us 180 to win off forty five overs. I was pretty confident that we could reel in this total as we have a pretty good batting line up. Our run chase got off to a solid start with Gideon Haigh agreeing to step into the breach left by me and Brian “Happy” Hannon our usual opener who was back replacing Nat “Mr Natural” Williams who was unavailable this week. They batted with solid determination and the score slowly mounted. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty…we ticked off each small milestone and dared to dream of pulling off a spectacular victory. The only nagging doubt came from the fact that despite the untroubled and at times delightful batting by Happy and Gid, we started to fall further and further behind in the run rate. Neither of the lads are natural hitters, Happy plays strictly in the “V” of mid on to mid off, while Gid bats in a classical manner with a straight bat and the most sumptuous of late cuts seen this side of the First World War.

Finally, Happy fell for a well made forty with the opening partnership having registered eighty four. One for eighty four is an awesome start to a run chase, but there was not much more than ten overs left to get the remaining ninety six for victory. The opening stand had eaten up nearly thirty five overs – a remarkable effort and a perfect start to a two day game, but in the circumstances we found ourselves in, not nearly quick enough. Though it must be said that the low slow bounce would not have helped the batsmen in the slightest.

Conrad De Souza then strode out at number three and played the innings of his life by stroking the ball around for a devil may care forty one not out in the remaining ten overs that got us to within seventeen of an unlikely victory. Upon Gid’s dismissal, Strachany strode to the wicket and unselfishly threw his wicket away in his effort to get the score board moving. We were now in kamikaze batting mode.

I began the walk to the crease upon Strachany’s dismissal and after only a few steps, I knew I was in deep trouble as both quadriceps started aching. “How am I going to get through this?” I thought to myself. When I reached the wicket I was greeted by a very determined Conrad who met me with the words “we have to run on everything so we can win this”. “This bloke certainly is made of the right stuff” I thought to myself as I nodded my head in agreement all the while wondering how I was going to survive this ordeal.

I usually bat a foot out of my crease to fast and medium pace bowlers, but here I stood a whole meter out of the crease to firstly have the ball “come on” to the bat a bit off the lifeless pitch and also to take the risk out of playing the big swing and miss. Batting so far out of the crease, it would take nearly a full toss to bowl me out if I took a swipe and missed.

Scoring my opening single with a push to cover. Conrad and I are both waiting for the ball to beat the fielder.

I scored my first run with a push through the covers. Conrad called me through for a single and I was in agony by the time I got to the other end. Conrad belted a number of two’s and we also ran some leg byes that careered off my pads. Such was my pain that I can barely remember much other than I played one sweet cut shot that I was praying would fly away for a boundary so I wouldn’t have to run – but as luck would have it, it stopped just short and we ran a three that felt akin to someone slicing the front of my thighs with a razor blade.

Conrad came up to me at the end of the over and was encouraging me to keep it up as he was really “on” and focused on winning the game from nearly an impossible position. I knew then that I wasn’t going to make it. If we needed four or five an over, I would have called for a runner as I am certain that we would have got them easily. But the ask now was mounting to beyond twelve an over and we needed someone capable of having a big swing at everything and running like a man possessed. Stuie “Disco” McDonald was promoted up the order to number six for such an eventuality, so I made the decision that I had to get off. I simply could not run and I was in too much pain to even try a “stand and deliver” smash and grab raid with a runner doing the running for me.

I signaled to the sidelines to let them know I was retiring hurt and for Disco to get on. But they couldn’t hear me because of crowd noise as there was some children’s presentation going on right next to our scorers with about one hundred and fifty kids and parents present having a BBQ – thus making it impossible to hear what was going on. As I walked closer and closer to the pavilion with my bat tucked under my arm taking off my gloves, they finally realized I was retiring hurt. The boys gave me a generous reception for coming off when not out – commending me on my selfless act. However, my decision was made up just as much out of the fact that I was in excruciating pain as the decision that I was better off making way for fit blokes to have a swing at victory.

I took off my pads nearly in tears. I was totally unable to render the team any assistance at all in circumstances where I would back myself in to at least make a fighting contribution. I stepped outside the dressing room to watch the denouement of our innings unfold with Conrad heroically making a forlorn charge at the now impossible target. We fell short by seventeen runs – probably much closer than anticipated considering how far behind the run rate we were at one stage. It brought respectability to a game we really never threatened to win.

Yet again, we only lost five wickets and yet again, we somehow conspired to lose a game against an opposition that man for man we matched up on quite well. For my part, I was to learn later that I had made seven – much more than I could remember making…for that matter, I couldn’t really remember much about my innings at all.

Most of the lads went home and some of us ended up back at our club house at Como where we tried to explain to our startled club mates how we yet again somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in quite unbelievable circumstances for the second week running. Conrad and Amit were the toast all round for their outstanding contributions as were Strachany for his three wickets and Gid and Happy’s eighty four run opening stand. However, it was all rather empty as we yet again missed out on a well deserved win.

It is coming…real soon.

See you next week!
Vic Nicholas
Melbourne