I didn't expect the nuances of suburban cricket to change much in my 18 or so months out of the game, and they haven't. It remains a game played to varying degrees of ability by jerk-offs, wankers, fuckwits, number nerds, filth merchants, sport jocks, pot heads, alcoholics, musicians, bedraggled bibliophiles and corporateers. (Yes, some are terms of endearment, but these are reserved for teammates only).
What has changed in that time is the landscape of my life, and that of the cricket club that's had my (often unfortunate) patronage, Emerald Hill.
First, and I promise to brief: my life. Since my last game for the Dragons, which was the final game of the 2008-9 season – when, under the cosmic, lidded-eyed leadership of Tom “Tomcat” Carlyon, our firsts, posing as a Shield-grade side, somehow threw away victory after having one of the zillion Waverley sides in the SDCCL on the ropes, resulting in a demoralising winless season, and the ignominy of relegation – I've slowly scrounged together a living out of writing, and become a father for the first time. (There's other stuff, but I'm sure no one else is interested.)
Now, on to the Hillers. While they've always been a club whose turnover rate probably quadruples all other clubs in the SDCCL (St Kilda people come and go; Oakleigh people, god love 'em, stay put), the number of changes after just one season away shocked me a little. Arriving at Central Park (nothing like its New York namesake) in Malvern East for today's game, I had to introduce myself to several of my teammates in Andy 'Farmer' Hill's beloved one-day side. All were affable lads in the old-school Hillbilly mould, but the name of one of them, Joel Ronchi, bugged me for a time. Where had I heard it before? Back at the club, after I'd lazily resolved the connection to be the WA 'keeper-batsman, Farmer told me he was in fact one of my Sunday Age 'Wedding of the Week' victims.
But backtrack, I must. The club – which has greened me out so many times, and has references to smoking weed in their club theme song – now seems to be going great guns again. The new attitude became obvious as 10 out of the 11 players arrived at the ground around 20 minutes before the start of play. Amazing what success brings, and breeds. After almost going under at the start of last season, the two sides they scraped together at season's start hit the juggernaut button after Christmas and brought home two flags. This year, they've entered three strong teams, and have sowed some structural seeds. Unlike two years ago, when a duck or a shocking day at the bowling crease would almost improve your chances of selection the next week, there's competition for spots.
Of course, the more things change the more they stay the same. As the pre-game 'gaspers' and sunscreen were handed out, these 'new' blokes started taking to the stalwartian of stalwartians, club president Jimmy Adams. Then, once the action got underway, Jimmy took it to the opposition. Controversy, it seems, follows the evergreen student around. Sprouting the most awful of awful-looking Movember concoctions, and having been dismissed cheaply, Jimmy took his turn as umpire. The first few no-balls he called didn't raise any eyebrows. It was from the half-dozen mark onwards, all off the same bowler, that things started to get animated. It was the enthusiasm in Jim-wah's voice, ya see, much like the scene in The Naked Gun when Lesley Nelson somehow ends up as baseball umpire and panders to the crowd's applause with a variety of dance moves including MJ's Moonwalk. The no-ball count hit 10, and tempers became flared.
Jimmy came off soon after, 12 extensions of his right arm to the good, rabbiting on about interpretations of the rule and how he was calling the bowler in question a fairy queen because he had the gall to question his calls (as if the bowler, whose run up was as long as Brett Lee's, needed any more aggravation). Then, chest cleared and spittle wiped, he quietly watched the game for a few seconds. Then he started bumming cigarettes again.
He may be a strange bird, Jimmy, but he's a top man all the same. His heart bleeds purple and green, especially green, and every club could do with having someone of his reliability, passion and commitment. Not to mention his ability to take one for the team.
As for the game itself? After a disastrous start, wristy strokemaker Tindu and skipper Farmer turned 3/9 into 3 for 60-odd (their partnership so impressed two old ladies walking past that they quipped Australia could do worse than call them up... how long has it been since the Australian cricket team were the butt of old ladies' jokes?) and then the tail wagged later on to get us to 169 all out in the 33rd over. What I – and the rest of my teammates, it seems – thought was a defendable total became something off a guffawing cakewalk as the Toorak wickets starting tumbling after a slowish start. We had them reeling at 5 for 80-odd before they found a second gear from somewhere (from their best bat, who was hidden at no.6, methinks) and smashed home the winning runs with four wickets in the shed and seven overs in hand. And, I'm hastened to add, that ever-familiar, sour taste of defeat stayed with me for at least a few minutes afterwards – or at least until I'd taken a sip of my first beer.
As for my own performance? A streaky 21 with the bat, 1/30 off seven overs, not to mention a miss-field at fine leg that went for four. It was a dusting off of the cobwebs, a shaking away of the rust, a (insert own cliché here). And I'm bound to be as sore as hell tomorrow. But the itch has been scratched, and I'll be coming back for more.
Back at the St Kilda Bowling Club, there was a distinct, refreshing absence of marijuana in the air. It still goes around, no doubt, but there's a certain level-headedness about the new crew, the next generation of a club that's as proud as hell, even if not many of its players take themselves too seriously. They wouldn't fit the Emerald Hill mould if they did. I took in the laughter and chatter around me, sipping away on a stubby of Melbourne bitter. It felt good to get back at one of Melbourne's most laid-back establishments after a day baking under the sun, playing the game that's been dear to me since I was knee-high. Old haunts never die.
Daniel Lewis
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