~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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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