A Batsy New Year

I met Tom Parker once. At the inaugural Festival of Cricket at Bowral, back in I think 2005, I signed up for the "Curators Clinic" and cadged a cigarette beforehand from a moustachioed bloke puffing away outside the tent… this bloke turning out of course to be Tom Parker. It was a very interesting session (except my inner 10-year old boy kept digging me in the ribs, going: "He said 'cooch'. Heh heh heh… He said 'cooch'. Heh heh heh…. He said 'cooch'. Heh… etc.") and ever since I look on the SCG groundstaff with a self-important and proprietorial air: "Oh sure, that'd be Tom, that roller dates back to 1923 you know, etc. etc"

I'm heading to the match tomorrow and the next day and it will be the 10th anniversary of the first time I went to an SCG Test Match. I remember the moment: emerging from the entrance passage between the Churchill and Doug Walters stands and being struck by the intense green of the oval at an unfamiliar flat angle and it all seeming very close, intimate and genteel. It put me in mind of this painting, Fernand Khnopff's Memories, a big favourite from the Symbolist Period of my adolescence:

Ah, Memories indeed: I also left at tea after a horrible fight with a boyfriend. Happy days!

All things being equal, I probably prefer to watch cricket on television. Well may I don a white burqa and religiously keep up the fluids, I still seem to skirt the edges of heat exhaustion by the end of the day each year. And the attempt to mitigate this effect takes one into very sternly priced categories of ticket indeed. Nota bene, Commentators Lamenting Test Cricket Attendances from the Paid Comfort of a Media Box.

But it's become a family tradition to dip a toe into the live atmosphere each year and I do like to put a Lovely Picnic together, the nature of which has also settled into something of a tradition over the years, this tradition being: "Traditionalist". Fruitcake. Egg Sandwiches. Lemonade. If the Famous Five wouldn't have eaten it, it doesn't go into the cooler bag. Oh yes, plus a box of Arnotts Barbecue Shapes. And that "lemonade", well, it's actually G&T in a lemonade bottle… But APART FROM THAT…

Christmas

I know at least two people who got a 2010 Men of Cricket calendar in their stocking this Christmas, one of them being me.

First impressions: I can't ignore the fact that 2010 is about half the size of 2009 while costing 50% more. But since this may well turn out to be the case, and it is charity, we'll let that raised eyebrow rest.

Stylistically, it has taken a leaf from the 2009 Coogee Rebels Cricket calendar, with mostly unclothed players looming in moody black-and-white against a black background. I rather miss the variety of locations and dress-styles of 2009, which conjured up an entertaining series of narrative scenarios. Like "The Gardner" in a steamy Danielle Steele novel, or "The Day I Jumped Into the Pool With All My Clothes On".

The hot issue of 2009 was "to wax or not to wax"? Katich and Hilfenhaus fly the flag again for the hairy man and run away with the whole show as far as I'm concerned. James Hopes is a portrait of confusion, sniffing his own hairy armpit while wearing 3-day facial growth and showing a little giveaway chest stubble. Nathan Hauritz: totally unsuited for this kind of gig, but displaying hair that defies the girly stereotype. Mitch: great tatt but a slightly constipated performance compared to his easy breezy 2009. Chest chair question cloaked in mystery due to being hunched over.

Boxing Day Test PS

Watson began irking me when he declared Flintoff his role model in the immediate aftermatch of Ashes 2005, combining tastelessness and sucky-ness in a way that he has since made all his own, and he has certainly picked up his hero's ability to relentlessly hog attention.

Of course I gurgled with delight in the 1st innings when Watto was run out in the 90s. When my viewing companion suggested I was being unpatriotic, I put it to him that if Watson kept getting out in the 90s he would be fulfilling both his duty as a batsman to the Australian team and my own requirement that he undergo maximum personal suffering. UnChristian, absolutely, but not unpatriotic. Obviously it couldn't last, however much Watson's 90s in the 2nd innings felt like it stretched an eternity.

Windies Test 3

I’ve been a bit off my cricket. It’s not a good sign when you miss the first day of a Test because you just hadn’t realised it had started, which is what I did with this last one. I might not have enjoyed seeing Simon Katich hole out on 99, but I could have been there and explained that Warnie did just the same thing. And even if I am a bowler’s girl, it was very poor form only half-watching Chris Gayle’s century because I was making dinner. For myself.

It picked up the last couple of days or so. So, things.

Grandstand commentators

I’ve got a certain amount of time for Justin Langer—he’s a famous cuddler—but I start to steal glances at my watch when he goes all shiny-eyed happy-clappy, which is a lot. Every ball, every state of play: an occasion to see the sunrise and live the dream, and if there’s space to fill there’s plenty of pride and joy in wearing the Baggy Green to go around.

It doesn’t stop at the boundary. Post-retirement, behold the terrifying Justin Langer “Power of One” World Tour of Duty, Passion and Self-Belief: getting his black belt, doing a marathon, the Kokoda Trail (here I muttered “Antarctica, surely” under my breath, and, close…), the North Pole. All the chestnuts of the cross.

Balance is of course offered by Terry “Backseat Driver” Alderman, whose default attitude to Australian goings-on on the field is disbelief mingled with disgust. It’s a bit like being at a school assembly where an interminable special guest address is succeeded by a lengthy harangue from the irritable deputy principal.

Unlikely lookalike #342

And speaking of poles and opposites, is it ridiculous to suggest that Doug Bollinger is the sunny half of a pair whose dark pole would be… Dwight Schrute?

Doug being the blond to Dwight’s brunette; the bogan to Dwight’s bumpkin-geek; upbeat, energetic and straightforward where Dwight is sneering and Machiavellian? But both strongly resembling root vegetables. Dougie Bollinger: another brutti ma buoni bowler from the Sunshine State. Do they export all the pretty ones to WA?

Swotto

Shane Watson, after all, “has the face of a dickhead”, according to my flatmate, although I admit this association could have been set up by me saying “dickhead” whenever Shane Watson’s face appeared on screen.