Twist of fate thwarts dream to wear the Baggy Green

Bazza reminisces about long summer nights of yesteryear when time ticked a little slower — and how a twist of fate thwarted his dream of opening the batting for Australia.

Bazza leaned back on his bar stool, gave his crook shoulder a good stretch and gazed out the window. The sky was well washed and a hopeful blue brought a slight smile to his face. Paul Kelly’s tribute song ‘Don Bradman’ drifted across the bar, cementing the mood.

“Deep in thought there, Bazza?”

Mick took a long sip from the full schooner.

“Just reminiscing about the old days, Mick”

Mick rolled his eyes.

“What? Before or after the Great Depression, Bazza?”

“You’re a bit of a smart arse sometimes, Mick, but no…. not that long ago……back when the start of summer was the beginning of the big relax. When everyone kicked back a notch when daylight saving started, and enjoyed the longer evenings. The days when people were not tuned into the ABC for natural disaster updates or cost of living statistics. Things just ticked along that little bit slower all the way to Melbourne Cup Day.”

“Yeah now I’m with you, Bazza……And by the first cricket test at the GABBA, you’re looking for that good spot on the lounge, ready access to a couple of cold ones, to start the big doze through to the end of January. By gee, we’re going back a few years now.”

They both took a decent drink and enjoyed the thought.

"Ah yeah…. the cricket. You know Mick, I could of played for Australia.”

Mick spluttered his beer.

“I kid you not, Mick. Trouble is, we lived next door to a witch.”

Mick had to steady his schooner.

“What?”

“Ah Mick. To start, her name was Michy, which was odd to begin with, and it did not take too much imagination for us kids to just turn the ‘M’ upside down and I’m sure you start to get the picture. She was also a trained butcher which was pretty bloody frightening, and she had this immaculate garden with manicured lawns that were seriously off limits to us feral kids.

I tell you, Mick, she even used tweezers to pull out tiny weeds. Our elder brother convinced us the only reason she was such a good gardener was because she would chop up any kids that strayed into her place, burn them in the incinerator and put the ashes into her compost”.

Mick smiled and Bazza took a decent drink.

“So Mick, if the ball went over the fence when we played backyard cricket, we were too frightened to get it. In fact, we probably pioneered women’s cricket because we even let our sister play with us, on the proviso she retrieve the ball, if we hit a six over the fence.

Even that strategy didn’t work because the lattice brick fence came tumbling down on her, when I was trying to get off my best score of 87 runs. And, as you know, it’s the ‘devil’s number’ for batters. So back then, it made sense. The witch had put a curse on that fence.”

Mick shook his head and had another sip.

“Well Mick, we all ended up batting like the boring English cricketer, Geoffrey Boycott. We specialised in blocking and just scoring singles. Under these circumstances, there is no way we could emulate our heroes, like Dougie Walters.”

Mick could not contain a good laugh.

“But Mick, we did solve the problem by digging a series of tunnels into the witch’s place. We would pop out behind her rose bed and grab the ball before she could catch us.”

Bazza sighed and grinned.

“But of course… by that stage, the Chappell Brothers had pinched our spots in the Australian Cricket Team.”

John Longhurst is a former industrial advocate and political adviser. He currently works as an English and History teacher on the South Coast of NSW.