RAIN, RAIN...

“Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”
~Susan Ertz (1894 – 11 April 1985) British fiction writer and novelist

It was not just the primary producers and our drought stricken dams that needed copious quantities of rain over last weekend.

Facing a rather difficult run chase, I spent all Saturday evening pondering the permutations of how our run chase would unfold for there to be a happy outcome for the Yarras Fifth Eleven.

That annoying beast logic kept rearing its ugly head and was cause for many negative alternative outcomes to my almost blinkered belief that somehow we would negotiate this very difficult assignment.

As it started to rain late on Saturday night I started having flashbacks to the rain effected pitch that we encountered against Maccabi only a couple of weeks before. "Just great" I thought to myself. "We have a difficult run chase as it is and now we will be confronted with a blasted green top pitch to further contend with".

I slept uneasily during that Saturday night with dreams of a heroic match winning innings being thwarted by waking every now again to the sounds of extremely heavy rain pelting down outside.

Never once did I countenance the possibility of the game being washed out.

Early on Sunday morning as I was still half in the world of sleep and half conscious - I heard my mobile phone quiver signalling a text message had just come through. I picked up my mobile thinking that perhaps Rakish needed a lift again to the ground. When I looked at the message, it was from Strachany and it simply stated that all MCA matches had been declared washed out for the weekend.

"Hooray!" I thought to myself - I can go back to sleep. And that pretty much summed up a large portion of my Sunday. It was dark and gloomy outside with constant heavy rain falling - so sitting in bed when I finally awoke seemed like a good thing.

As a result, we escaped with a draw - though if I maintain the positivity, perhaps we were denied a famous victory. Who knows?

Anyway, it is now three weeks since I last had a bat under match conditions and that was something not worth cheering about from teh relative comfort of my bed.

This week we play a one day game against top placed team National at Fawkner Park - a venue I have been looking forward to playing at all season due in no small part to its wonderful Oak and Elm trees and sporting boundaries.

It is one of the most picturesque grounds in Melbourne.

More next week!

Vic Nicholas

Melbourne

AUSTRALIA

PARKDALE CC - TOIL

"I've often said: the only thing standing between me and greatness... is me."
~Woody Allen -(December 1, 1935- ) American actor, comedian and screenwriter.

It was a tough day in the field last Sunday.

So tough that even the thought of reliving it by having to write about it was enough to make me shudder. The day was not overly hot due to the fact that a merciful sea breeze swept Parkdale United’s home ground in Mordialloc.

Due to Strachany having to spend most of the weekend in Brisbane (ostensibly visiting family and friends), I was handed the captaincy reigns until Strachany arrived at the ground (direct from the airport). I was excited, scared and concerned all at the same time. It occurred to me very quickly that it is far easier to simply roll up and play as opposed to the hundreds of concerns that are the burden of the captain.

Would we have enough players to even make an eleven? The spring racing carnival and other upheavals had conspired to decimate our playing ranks. With a few ring ins and coaxing back the occasional lapsed Yarra saw us having eleven players with Strachany roping in a bloke to substitute for him until he arrived.

The idea was to bat if I won the toss, but looking at the pitch it looked like it was already crumbling and would take spin as the afternoon wore on, so after consulting Chips Pringle our veteran wily off spinner, I decided that if I won the toss I would bowl. As it transpired, I lost the toss by calling incorrectly and the Parkdale captain had no hesitation in electing to bat, so I was going to get my wish in any case.

I called the lads together ever so briefly and gave them the usual rev up before we field. It was short and to the point. I reminded the lads that one thing that we have been doing wonderfully well all season has been backing each other up in the field, with a lot of positive talk and no recriminations if anyone misfields or drops a catch. Pretty much word for word what Strachany would say, except due to the fact that batsmen were already waiting for us in the middle, much more succinct out of necessity.

I threw the ball to Cameron McKenzie-Smith to open the bowling downwind with Justin Southern to partner him. I then proceeded to set the field trying to put lads in their normal positions and try and keep things as normal as possible.

The first two overs passed with out much ado as both lads bowled a tight line. In the third over Cam dropped short, but the ball didn't get up as much as the batsman calculated it would and he miscued his pull shot which was skied in the direction of mid wicket where Rakish was located. After a few steps back with his gaze fixed skyward, the ball finally stuck in Rakish's hands much to our collective delight.

We got the early break through and I was relieved and delighted at the same time - this captaincy gig certainly has more to it than I had considered prior to Sunday. After six or seven overs (I honestly cannot remember exactly how many) I saw Strachany arrive on his scooter in style like the Fonz. I was bouyed by the sight of our captain, though to be fair, Chips Pringle - a man with extensive captaincy experience - was assisting admirably with field placings and encouragement. Soon enough Strachany was on the field and his usual chirpy self heading the cheer leading from cover.

Soon enough a game turning moment was thrust before me in the shape of a thick edge off the bat of the Parkdale opening batsman Christos Pappas as he attempted to cut a ball too close to him. The ball was literally fizzing through the air as it flew about a meter off the ground and wide to my left. I instinctively launched myself in a goal keeper type of dive and while in mid air and horizontal to the ground, I managed to get both hands to the fast moving ball and in an instant I thought to myself "got it" as the ball stuck in my clasped hands only for gravity to bring me crashing to the turf where the ball was dislodged from my grip when my left elbow jarred upon connecting with the ground.

I was really upset to state the bleedingly obvious. While none of my team mates would have thought anything of it - it would have been a blinder of a catch if I held it - I was disappointed due the fact that I have specifically been practicing taking "impossible" diving catches at training by throwing myself around diving hither and thither and taking eight or nine out of ten of the chances that come my way at training. To drop this catch when it had "stuck" in my hands was galling. It became even more galling as the afternoon wore on as Pappas proceeded to hang around like a Geoff Boycott or Chris Tavare. Barely playing a shot, rarely scoring a run, but a vital cornerstone around which the other Parkdale batsmen rallied around and created partnerships which steadily built the score as the day wore on.

Wickets were hard to come by and the score kept mounting when I dropped yet another catch - this one later in the day when the score was already beyond 200 when one of the Parkdale batsmen played a thumping hook shot off the middle of his bat which flew to me flat at a rapid rate of knots and I simply lost sight of it...not getting a look at the ball until it was too late and I didn't even get a hand to it as it bounced off my stomach just to the right of my belly button. Six inches higher and I would now be nursing broken ribs. Six inches lower and the chances of their being any future descendants of Victor James Nicholas would be remote. The only good thing that came out of it was that my stomach stopped a certain boundary.

Somewhere around this time I was involved in the play of the season so far, though I did not see any of it. Let me explain how and why. The left handed Parkdale batsman played a thunderous cut shot that was flying along the ground and seemingly destined to pass me by about two meters and career to the boundary as there was nobody behind me in my position stationed at deep point.

I launched into a desperate dive to my left and I just managed to get enough of my out stretched left hand onto the ball to parry it towards cover. The batsmen thinking that it was surely going to be four runs until my intervention, then hesitatingly set off on single to salvage something out of this fine shot.

After I got my hand on the ball, I naturally crashed to the turf and hit my head so I did not see what happened next. When I deflected the ball it ran away to cover and straight into the path of Strachany who - as ever - was alert to the situation and scooped up the ball and threw it inch perfect to our keeper Timmy Miller who whipped off the bails to run out the obdurate Pappas. Christos Pappas marathon innings of 52 stretched out over about sixty five overs of painstaking but effective batting.

While all this commotion was going on, I was laying on the ground in the starfish formation staring skywards but in a daze and seeing stars when only clouds were overhead. My first inkling that something had happened was when I heard excited whoops of joy and Strachany walking towards me to see if I was OK...I saw our boys in a huddle and the Parkdale batsman starting to troop off. Strachany's huge smile told me that something miraculous had happened and his "well done mate" confirmed it all.

I really wish at times like this that someone was filming our game with a handy-cam - but my teammates vivid narrative of what happened was just as illuminating as any action replay could ever be.

After what seemed like forever, the day drew to a close when we completed the seventy sixth - and last - over of the day with Parkdales score finally resting on 8 for 251. It was a tough day all round and as we trudged off, I knew that we would have a huge task ahead of us next Sunday in order to come away with the win. We would have to bat out of our skins to make the 252 necessary to win.

The key to the Parkdale score was a number of partnerships and about four batsmen making decent scores - that is exactly what we have to do.

I hope when I next write to you, it will be with the news that we have won.

Here's hoping!

Vic Nicholas
Melbourne
AUSTRALIA

MACCABI AJAX – VICTORY AT LAST!

The victorious Yarras Fifth Eleven. Everyone of us was exhausted when this photo was taken, but it was the sweetest victory!

“Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.”
~Malcolm S Forbes - (August 19, 1919 – February 24, 1990) publisher of Forbes magazine.


After coming close a number of times, the mighty Yarras Fifth Eleven enjoyed a win on the weekend! Now in the after glow of a tremendous win I can bask in the glory of my teammates heroic efforts….but that would be getting way ahead of the story.

Sunday dawned cloudless and hot. Good news for our not out overnight batsmen in Penny Lane and Connair De Souza, but bad news for our bowlers who were not going to enjoy the same seam friendly conditions as Maccabi had the week before. Our score was a precarious 7/124 and after having a quick look at the rock hard pitch that resembled a road, I also sensed that we had nowhere near enough to defend.

In the opening over of the day, Conrad was softened up with a series of quick balls that were dug in short and then he fell for the sucker punch by misreading the slower ball and spooning a catch to gully for a soft dismissal without adding to his overnight score of ten. Conrad was ropeable at himself for not going on in great batting conditions.

Penny Lane setting off for the run to bring up his fifty.

It was now 8 for 124 and things were not looking too good. Enter Cameron McKenzie-Smith – a barrel chested fast bowler who looks like he indulges in wood chopping in his spare time and he wields his bat more like an axe rather than a blade. Without bothering with the triviality of getting his eye in, “Twin Cam” set about swinging his bat like a lethal weapon and crashed the Maccabi bowlers to the boundary repeatedly. All the while Penny Lane was pushing the ball around as he edged closer to his fifty.

Julian Lane acknowledging the boys cheers.

Penny Lane thumped a boundary that took him to forty nine and then soon after he guided one square and brought up his fifty. A gutsy innings that was exactly what was required under the circumstances. But it was too good to last. On fifty one, Penny was rapped on the pads, but the umpire gave it not out. The very next ball, Penny was again rapped on the pads and this time he was not so lucky as the umpires finger went up.

Penny Lanes fine knock ends as he exits the playing arena with a gutsy 51.

It was a great blow because Twin Cam was going like the clappers smashing boundary after boundary and the score was starting to mount up. As so often happens, Twin Cam fell soon after for an entertaining twenty one and we were all out for 155. I thought considering the conditions we batted in last week, it was not too bad. Penny however didn’t like our chances after experiencing the pitch first hand – “we are f**ked...the pitch is a road, it is not doing anything” was Penny’s first words upon exiting the arena.

Cameron McKenzie-Smith on the rampage during his cameo of 21.

With the day getting hotter and hotter, no hint of greenness in the pitch and an absolutely cloudless sky – I was starting to worry myself. We really couldn’t take a trick as far as conditions went and as we walked out onto the ground to take up our fielding positions, I also noticed that the outfield – in contrast to last week – was lightning fast. So not only were Maccabi going to get a benign pitch compared to the sticky dog we got, but they were also going to get a wickedly fast outfield which would aid them to score quickly. Things were really stacked against us.

Bobby Fisher bowled the first over which passed by uneventfully without any hint of movement or assistance to our bowlers. Twin Cam took the new ball with Bobby and in his first over he uprooted the off stump of the Maccabi batsman Rothschild. Just the start we needed! We geed ourselves up by reminding each other that we needed to keep taking wickets. I knew that on this pitch and with the large amount of overs left, we basically had to bowl Maccabi out in order to win the game.

The plucky little Maccabi wicket keeper Plavin (the venus fly-trap) joined Ben Jones and the two young Maccabi batsmen dug in to take the score to 1 for 24 when Bobby Fisher removed both Plavin and then Jones in a double strike to have us rocking with delight. At 3 for 29 Maccabi were not off to the start that they wanted or needed. The veteran Schneider dug in with the young tyro Fetter for a critical and frustrating partnership. Fetter playing in an orthodox manner looks every inch a future star batsman. On teh other end of the scale, Schneider seems to hold the bat backwards when he is facing up, but somehow spins it around to play with a straight bat and he frustrated our bowlers with his stonewalling. Their partnership was ended when Jason “Torvill” Endean produced a beautifully disguised slower ball to trap Schneider plumb in front with the score now 4 for 57. The next over Connair bowled pesky young Fetter with no addition to the score and it was now 5 for 57. We were half way there – surely they would capitulate now?

Maccabi dug deep yet again in the shape of father and son combination of Ian Jones and Josh Jones. The fast outfield was killing us as each time they found a gap, be it with a well placed shot or a fluky edge - it seemed to fly away for a boundary. The heat was now starting to kick in and I could see from the faces of our players that they were on the brink of total exhaustion. Maccabi were careering towards victory and there seemed little we could do to stop their victory charge as Ian and Josh Jones were batting with relative ease.

"If we can break this partnership up, then we will clean up the tail surely?" I thought to myself. But how were we going to break this partnership – they looked rock solid? Then something happened that swung the game back in our favour. I started to notice that the younger Jones was starting to struggle with the heat. He would bow down after most balls and gasp for air and his foot work became almost non existent. I thought to myself "this lad is out on his feet - it is only his duty to his dad that is keeping him going". Eventually, he could stand no more and he retired hurt and was escorted off the ground with jelly legs where he promptly collapsed under a tree with water being poured over him to try and revive him.

It was a bad break for Maccabi, but for us, it was the chance we needed. Yossi Herbst came in and departed soon after without scoring making it 6 for 98. Eli Herbst also departed for a duck and then in amongst all this carnage the Maccabi captain Ian Jones who had been holding us up was also bowled out after making a brave twenty. It was now 8 for 104. Eli Paneth came and went for a duck and it was now 9 for 104 and Maccabi were dead in the water…or were they?

Josh Jones through this whole collapse was laying flat on his back under a tree barely moving. He did not look any chance at all of coming back in to bat and we debated this amongst ourselves as each Maccabi wicket fell – “will the kid come back out again?”. With the ninth wicket he picked himself up and came back out with a runner. Jones still looked rather unsteady and we all must have thought that this was all rather token and he was not going to survive for long, but survive he did! In fact, he seemed to bat even better than earlier by flashing his bat at anything wide of his stumps and he hit a few boundaries and all of a sudden visions of the freaky ninth wicket partnership that steered Burnley home to an unlikely win in Round One certainly crossed my mind and probably a few of my team mates too.

Our bowlers had toiled magnificently in the heat and here we were one wicket away from victory and all of a sudden these guys were making a charge. I chased away the negative thoughts by thinking to myself, this Maccabi number eleven batsman is not going to survive long enough for Maccabi to pull off an improbable win – surely one good ball will get him. And that is exactly how it played out. Twin Cam was rewarded for some tight bowling by the Maccabi number eleven spooning a catch right back at him which he held. It was his third wicket and his second catch for the day. Bobby Fisher had picked up 5 for 24 in a wonderful display of line and length bowling and Torvill and Connair picked up a wicket each.

In stifling heat we only used four bowlers with each one of them bowling themselves to a stand still and in Connairs case – the point of sickness - as he had to go off after his spell briefly to get a drink as he had completely hit the wall. The bowling group were heroes in my eyes...pure guts and determination.

We were cock a hoop at having secured our first win for the year. There were heroes a plenty as you can imagine. Penny Lane for his gutsy innings, Bobby Fisher for his five wicket haul, Twin Cam McKenzie-Smith with his cameo of twenty one with the bat, three wickets with the ball and two catches in the field and many others.

On the clubhouse balcony as the boys all enjoyed a well deserved cold beer, Strachany praised the efforts of all the boys in particular his choice of this weeks man of the match Bobby Fisher. He again reserved the encouragement award for me for my efforts in throwing myself around the field like a mad man. If I felt that Strachany was being generous the week before last with his effusive praise for my fielding, then I felt he had gone to even greater lengths this time as I personally could remember at least two guys who were more inspirational in the field – Jason Endean who had patrolled the covers like a miserly cheetah and Twin Cam who had produced a couple good stops and taken two catches – one of which was a very good slips catch while he was stationed at second slip.

In any case, I was delighted to be held up as an example for fielding commitment by my captain and my teammates yet again. I still have a long way to go, but the recognition from my peers makes the hard work seem worth while. It was a tough game...we had the worst of the conditions both weeks - a seamers paradise first week while we were batting and a dead track the following week with hot conditions when we had to defend a small total.

It was a win of pure guts and determination and I am so proud of all the boys and the parts they all played. The bowlers in particular were simply heroic.

I salute them all.

Next week is a new week and yet another two day game...what further adventures does this game have in stall? We all have to wait and find out!

See you all next week!

Vic Nicholas
Melbourne

MACCABI AJAX - GREEN PITCH & CLOUDY SKIES

Playing and missing a ball going down the leg side early in my innings.

“A car hit a Jewish man. The paramedic says, "Are you comfortable?" The man says, "I make a good living."”
~Anon

This weeks game against Maccabi Ajax was always going to be somewhat out of the ordinary in a number of ways for a myriad of different reasons.

Firstly, while we were playing at home yet again, we were not playing at our usual Como Park West ground which is adjacent to the pavilion, but Como East, which while abutting Como West, is a much longer walk around to the pavilion. This necessitated setting up chairs etc on the mound on the other side of the oval. A completely unfamiliar experience unto itself, but more drama was to follow - which I will get to later.

Secondly we were playing Maccabi Ajax - a cricket club where the overwhelming majority of the players are of Jewish origin and practice the Judaic faith. This is fascinating to me as one of my great interests is Eastern European history being of Eastern European origins myself.

Maccabi Ajax started way back in 1929 as the Hakoah Cricket Club. In 1945, the club renamed itself the Ajax Cricket Club and played its home games next to the cemetary in Princess Park.1 This was logical from a demographic perspective as Carlton had a large vibrant Jewish community from the turn of the century until the mid 1960's whereby thereafter the community drifted south of the Yarra to more prosperous suburbs.2

Ajax Carnival team 1947.

Ajax competed in the Northern Suburbs Cricket Association. In the late 1950's, the club moved to Fawkner Park (following the trend of the bulk of the Carlton/Brunswick Jewish communities move south). It was in 1962 that Ajax made the move to their present home ground at Albert Park to start competing in turf competitions.3

In 1973 a sister club was formed in Doncaster with the name of Northern Maccabi Cricket Club to cater for the nascent Jewish communities growing in the Doncaster/Balwyn areas. By the mid to late1980’s the club fielded up to four senior teams and an Under 16’s team in the Eastern Suburbs cricket competition. By the mid 1990’s however, Northern Maccabi was facing the same decision as their sister club Ajax had faced thirty years earlier in that their Jewish demographic base had started to drift over to the Southern suburbs. It was in 1996 that the decision was made to merge with Ajax and form one club – Maccabi Ajax.4

So with a unique history whereby Maccabi Ajax draw their players from a particular community, they certainly stand out from the crowd. Having said that with the massive influx of immigrants from the sub continent, new Indian and Sri Lankan ethnic dominated teams are being formed and fielded in competitions across Melbourne – so the Maccabi Ajax experience is now being replicated.

Being the culturally sensitive soul that I am, I was aware in the days leading up to the game of the dietary issues faced by most of the Maccabi Ajax lads when afternoon tea was to be served. I searched around for some kosher goodies to ensure that the lads did not starve to death on account of our forgetfulness. I picked up a Glicks Challah and some cookies and that did the trick. The rest of our lads brought lots of sandwiches, but with all of them containing ham – there was never going to be any takers. My Glicks Challah however, completely disappeared as the hungry young lads from Maccabi dug in.

When I arrived at our ground earlier, there were concerned looks on the faces of our boys and on the umpires. While the covers had protected the pitch of our usual home ground at Como West, the Como East oval pitch was green and wet due to some leak in the covers. A delayed start to the game was the best we could hope for and the possibility of the game being washed out was very real as the pitch at one end was very wet and the run up dangerous.

I was happy enough to play no matter what the conditions. I just want to play all the time! How bad could a seaming green deck be? The umpires and captains agreed to monitor the pitch and the surrounds every half hour but the situation was not overly hopeful as there was dark cloud cover with no wind and sun to dry the pitch out. Eventually, around 2pm play was scheduled to get under way, but only from one end! I had never before played in a game where all the bowling would take place from end and all the batting from the other with the batsmen changing over after every over, but it was either that, or no play at all. So, we decided some cricket – even in such curtailed circumstances – was better than no cricket at all.

I was praying that we would win the toss so we could give our bowlers some favourable conditions to bowl on for a change, but as fate would have it, with a green deck looming, Strachany lost the toss and the Maccabi captain had no hesitation in putting us in to bat. “Just wonderful” I thought to myself as I padded up.

Our fifth different opening combination in as many games took strike. The veteran Brian “Happy” Hannon took strike with Sam “Fairfax” Mitchell-Head as his partner. Happy has batted for over one hundred overs combined in his three matches so far this year. We were going to need yet another stoic performance from him today to keep our innings together and “Fairfax” plays with a straight bat, so we were hopeful he could stick around as well.

As Happy faced up to the opening over, I could immediately see that this pitch was not going to do us any favours at all. The bounce from short of a length was nothing short of astonishing compared to the low decks we usually play on. By the second over of the day, disaster had already struck as the usually rock-like Happy had spooned a catch straight to square leg as he flicked one off his toes. Oh dear! I was walking out to bat half way through the second over with only four runs on the board. As I passed Happy he muttered, “don’t worry, the ball is coming through straight”. I have learnt long ago never to trust the judgment of the outgoing batsman as they are usually so angry to be out, they will never offer any really helpful advice with “the bowlers are shit” being the stock standard line.

The young bowler who had dismissed Happy went by the name of Ben Jones and he is a left armer bowling over the wicket, so I opened up my stance to be facing him almost front on to make sure I could see where he was going to be pitching the ball rather than standing too side on. It is a technique I learned more than thirty years ago watching Geoff Boycott bat when facing left armers like Geoff Dymock and it has instinctively stayed with me ever since when facing left arm bowlers.

The first delivery I let go as it fizzed past my off stump at a good height. I then blocked out the next two before pushing a ball to mid wicket for an easy single to get off the mark. That was the over and we changed ends as I now had to face up to Yossie Herbst a fast bowler with a Hassidic beard and a Yarmulke. The guy looked innocuous enough, but he then ran in and speared a delivery at my chest which I defended down the wicket with much “oohhhs” and “ahhhs” from the Maccabi fieldsmen. His next delivery was a bouncer that was heading for my face when I swiveled and hooked it down past square leg. It looked four all the way as I middled it well, but alas, the outfield was dead slow and I had to make do with two runs.

Two photos as part of a sequence of yours truly playing a hook shot for two off Herbst.

This battle went on for a number of overs as Herbst repeatedly dropped the ball short at me trying to intimidate me. Little did he know that fast bowling is not my weakness, let alone short pitched fast bowling. Some of Herbsts bouncers seemed to slow up and sit up after pitching thus seeing me get through my attempted hook shot too early a few times.

On one occasion I bottom edged an attempted hook down onto my pad. On another occasion, one of his bouncers fizzed just over my head as I ducked just in time. This test of courage went on a bit more when Herbst dropped short again, this time it was pitched on or just outside off stump and I shaped up to play a shoulder high cut so the ball would fly over the slips cordon, but the ball altered course dramatically after pitching and started to cut in sharply from outside off to now passing by my left shoulder. It was already too late to change my stroke to a hook shot, so I was left with two options; either jump out of the way and let him think I was a coward, or let the ball hit me.

I chose the latter and the ball cannoned into my back just at the very bottom of my left shoulder blade with a dull thud. The ball ricocheted away to square leg and I walked back past my stumps thinking “why the hell did I just do that?” as the searing pain started to kick in. As I showed no emotion – though everybody would have known it would have hurt like hell – I felt I had won the battle for now. I gave it a slight rub, but I quickly took guard for the next ball.

While the bumpers largely stopped, the ball was still seaming wickedly off the deck and all the bowlers bowled a sound line to exploit the conditions. I seriously could have been out at least half a dozen times in the opening half an hour. One pull shot that I again got through too quickly because of the ball holding up off the pitch, struck the back of my bat and ballooned high up in the air. My heart sank as I assumed it would go to hand, but somehow it managed to just drop behind the slips cordon and I survived.

Another time I was even luckier, a vicious out swinger by Herbst took the edge of my bat and flew waist height to first slip who was standing about sixteen or seventeen yards back. The slip fieldsman caught me, dropped me, juggled it back up, caught me again, dropped me, juggled the ball back up and then finally put me down. That was a truly lucky escape and I must say that Yossi Herbst deserved a wicket, but as often happens he missed out.

My batting partner through this ordeal – Sam “Fairfax” Mitchell-Head - was also having a tough time of it. He played and missed outside off stump, but was able to get bat onto ball with a straight bat everytime something was pitched on the stumps. Fairfax nearly contributed to his own downfall when he mistimed a pull shot to a full toss and spooned a simple catch to square leg – only for the fieldsman to fluff it. We met mid pitch at the end of the over and I told him he was lulling them into a false sense of security. The poor bugger smiled back at this dry gallows humour as we both knew that beyond hanging in there, not much else could be done.

Young Aaron Fetter was brought on in place of the hostile Herbst. Now sizing up this fourteen year old lad I was about to face, I thought to myself “surely this kid will bowl some loose stuff that I can whack away to get the scoring moving along?” How wrong could I be? His first over was as perfect as you could ask for. Every ball was pitched in the corridor of uncertainty and he allowed the pitch and the seam to do the rest. The Maccabi brains trust had noticed that I was batting a long way out of my crease to the fast men to nullify LBW’s and exaggerated seam movement, so their pint sized teenage wicket keeper – hence forth known as the “Venus Flytrap” for his ability to take the ball cleanly – stood right up to the stumps to force me back into my crease.

By the second over from Fetter, things only got worse. I managed to play out a maiden with the ball spitting off the pitch and hitting me on the ribs, another rapping me on the pads to stifled appeals and then a ripper of a ball that I shaped to get forward to, only for it to hit a divot or something and jump up towards my face. As I raised my bat instinctively, the ball hit the shoulder of the bat and ballooned to much excitement to where a silly mid off might be standing. However, much to my good fortune, nobody was placed that close and Fetter was forced to make a run for it from his follow through in an effort to complete the catch and the ball dropped only a couple of feet in front of him as he belatedly arrived.

The rest of the over continued in a similar vein and I was staggered that I had survived at all. The pitch was covered in divots made by the ball and my bat was starting to get covered in mud marks as the ball was gripping on the pitch and carrying the mud with it on it’s ascent off the pitch. In past games I never concerned myself with gardening the pitch or patting down uneven bits, but today was very different. I was feverishly trying to pat down as many divots as possible as each time the ball hit one of those freshly made divots, it would have the effect of a miniature slips cradle – some deliveries would skid through low, others would freakishly lift up off just short of a length and others would viciously seam at right angles in the most unpredictable manner.

Survival on this pitch was reduced to a game of chance. There was no skill session that could prepare me for playing on a sticky green wicket and in no way could I trust the pitch to play full blooded drives. The uncertainty was too great. So I figured that dropping the sheet anchor and just hanging around for at least another hour in the hope that the pitch might improve as the day wore on would be the only sensible thing I could do. I passed on this sentiment to Fairfax at the end of the over and he nodded his head in agreement while at the same time congratulating me on surviving the over from hell dished up by Fetter.

This is the moment where the ball has flown off the shoulder of my bat to silly mid off during "the over from hell". Note how green the pitch is in this shot.

The double bowling change brought on a young fair haired bespectacled lad by the name of Josh Jones. While capable of bowling some fine deliveries, he was not as accurate as Fetter and thus offered a little bit of respite, but not much. As happens when there is a bowling change, the batsmen often break their concentration as they mentally congratulate themselves for seeing off the better bowlers – and so it was to prove. Fairfax received a very hittable delivery which he mistimed straight to a fieldsman. After his hard work in surviving some pretty hostile and unpredictable bowling, it was a wasteful way for Sam to go. His hour long vigil at the crease yielded only four runs as if to highlight the difficulties in scoring on such a pitch.

Enter Jason “Torvill” Endean.

The man.
The myth.
The legend.

Torvill is an allrounder of immense skill who played in our Fifths all last year and his sterling performances with both bat and ball had this year earned him the Vice Captaincy of the Fourths who play on Saturdays. He had offered to help us out in this match to overcome our player shortage brought on by the Spring Racing carnival. Torvill is no “fill in” though. He was fresh from making an inspired ninety two the day before for the Fourths and boasted a season batting average of a mammoth 229.00! Clearly, the man was in the form of his life. However, this pitch was that bad, that even the mighty Jason Endean was battling for survival. He was positive and upbeat between overs – as you would expect from a guy with a 229.00 season average – but clearly the pitch was playing tricks that dissuaded even natural stroke makers like Torvill from displaying the full range of their skills.

Playing a shot to mid wicket.

I drew strength from Torvill’s confidence and started to play some more attacking strokes. I smacked a lovely cover drive that should have been four once it beat the infield, but that slow outfield kicked in again and I had to be content with a well run two. I then smashed an off drive in the air that easily cleared the mid off fieldsman, but yet again held up in the outfield, so we could run only another two. Drinks were going to be taken soon, so my plan was to make it to drinks, regroup with Torvill and then put on a sizeable partnership. My only concern was that despite having batted for about eighteen overs, I was still not “in” in cricketing terms. Normally, it takes me about four overs to get my “eye in”. For the uninitiated in cricket speak, that means that your judgment of what the ball is doing and your reactions to the pitch conditions, light and ball movement is set and you start feeling comfortable and are able to play your natural game. Today, there was no way known that I could say that even after batting for more than an hour that I had a handle on the conditions and had my “eye in”. I simply could not trust the pitch to play to any script. It seemed to have a mind of its own and rendered batsmanship to a game of stout defense and hope.

Playing a watchful defensive stroke.

With drinks now in sight and playing on my mind, Josh Jones served up a low rank full toss that was so wide that if I left it alone, it probably would have been called such. The thing is, on a pitch like this, balls that don’t pitch on the minefield are a gift almost too good to resist as scoring opportunities are so rare. As the ball floated down, I was torn in three minds…should I smash it, should I just push at it in the hope of getting a couple of runs if I beat the infield or should I take the more circumspect option and leave it alone altogether as drinks was almost here and there was not too much point in taking any unnecessary risks?

A wristy shot to square leg.

In retrospect, I should have left this horrible wide full toss altogether. Or if I was going to go for it, then smash the absolute daylights out of it. Instead, I dabbed at it and the ball hit the toe of my bat, yet still somehow flew all the way to mid off where the only person tall enough on the whole field to take the catch leapt in the air and caught it after a slight juggle. With a lesser bat, it would have just petered out in front of me, but this was one occasion where my super connecting bat did me no favours as the ball flew with laser precision to the fieldsman. If any of the other short lads from Maccabi was under it, it surely would have cleared their heads, but no, I had to pick out the tallest bloke on the field.

Stupid, stupid, STUPID!

A cut off the front foot.

I had suffered through some excellent bowling for more than an hour on a really spiteful pitch only to surrender my wicket to the worst ball I faced all day. It was a harsh lesson in concentration. I had concentrated so hard to that point to resist my natural instinct in going for big shots, yet I had thrown all my hard work away in an instant of madness.

Yet again this season, I had found a new way to bring myself undone. My innings finished on seventeen which consisted of seven singles and five twos. Of those five twos, on any normal day, at least four of them would have been fours as the outfield was dead and the ball was slowing up a lot when played along the ground.

I trudged off disconsolately knowing that I had badly let my teammates down by wasting my innings like that. Julian “Penny” Lane passed me on his way in and I told him to give them stick as I usually do. The score was now a precarious 3 for 36 and there was still much hard work to be done to climb out of this hole. The situation deteriorated even further when Jason Endean was out for seven soon after and we were teetering at 4 for 41 as Strachany entered the fray just before drinks.

“Penny” and Strachany then dug in to put on a gutsy partnership worth thirty three with Strachany scoring twenty of them with some aggressive stroke play as Penny played the straight man. Strachany was out in the same manner as the rest of us by spooning a catch when he was up and running and the score was now 5 for 74. Nashad “False” Alam then came and went quickly for one and in an awful decision, Rakish "The Rake" Kothapalli was controversially given out caught behind for three when he clearly hit the ground with his bat and not the ball.


We had now slumped to a rather precarious 7 for 79 with Conrad De Souza – surely the best number nine going around – coming in to join Julian “Penny” Lane who had had survived the collapse and even survived a dropped catch to still be there to give us some hope. The pitch was now starting to play a little better as it started to dry out and the conditions were improving. Penny and Connair saw us through to stumps with a sensible partnership worth forty five. It was not without its moments it must be said – in the final over of the day with fieldsmen crowding the bat – Conrad was dropped twice. Once at first slip and then later when he hit one firmly at silly mid on who put down the sharper chance.

We had averted disaster as the boys walked off the ground fading light with Connair on ten not out and Penny on forty three not out with our total score sitting on a far more respectable 7 for 124. Next week the boys have the opportunity to bat on and put on some more runs to put some pressure on the Maccabi batsmen. Penny particularly deserves to go on and get his half century as he batted sensibly and held our innings together when disaster was lurking around every corner. With the very capable Connair partnering him, a big partnership is not out of the question.

I am very hopeful that we can secure our first win of the season – but much hard work still needs to be done before we can even dream of that.

More next week!
Vic Nicholas
Melbourne



B Hannan c ? b B Jones 2
S Mitchell-Head c ? b J Jones 4
VJ Nicholas c ? b J Jones 17
J Endean c ? b J Jones 7
J Lane not out 43
*D Strachan c ? b E Herbst 20
N Alam c ? b E Herbst 1
R Kothapalli c ? b E Lipshatz 3
CA De Souza not out 10
CW McKenzie-Smith dnb
R Fisher dnb
Extras (0nb,7w,11b,2lb) 20

Total 7/124

Overs 55

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1 Ray Montag “Ajax Cricket Club” - http://www.maccabiajaxcc.com/clubinfo/clubhistory.htm
2 Cf Carlton A History, Edited by Peter Yule. Melbourne University Press 2004.
3 Ray Montag “Ajax Cricket Club” - http://www.maccabiajaxcc.com/clubinfo/clubhistory.htm
4 Richard Lustig “Northern Maccabi Cricket Club” - http://www.maccabiajaxcc.com/clubinfo/clubhistory.htm