It was similar in a way playing for Southern Districts, because the team didn’t matter: you were playing for yourself. Those games were trials for state selection, so no-one really cared which team won. And Cypress was just a bit of fun. Only now, trying to get Tarrawagga to win something for about the first time in history, was I in a game that mattered. Really mattered. As Rolf trudged off I told myself, ‘Well, Josh, if you ever wanted to be a star, now’s your chance.’
But it wasn’t really about me being a star or a black hole or something in between. It was about a word that teachers like Mr Surrey use all the time, until you’re sick of hearing it. Responsibility. Yep, that was it. I had to make myself responsible for this walking disaster called the Tarrawagga Primary School cricket team and somehow hold it together till we could make another 106 runs. We were exactly halfway to the total we needed for a win, and we’d lost all our best players.
I did something I’ve never done before, and that is walk out to meet the new batsman. I’d never done it before because I don’t like it when people do it to me. I hadn’t liked it when Red did it. I reckon it interferes with your concentration. Makes it harder for you to get ready for your innings. But I was too scared of what Nathan might do. I said to him: ‘Just block every single ball, Nath. I want you still here in two hours, get it? Two hours. You try to hit a six like Rolf, and I’ll break a stump over your head.’
He was only a little kid, Nathan. He was in Grade 5, but he looked even younger. At least he was quick on his feet, and he was smart. Now he stared at me like I was Jack the Ripper having a bad day. ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much what Mr Surrey said,’ he whispered.
I headed back to the non-striker’s end, hoping I hadn’t made him any more nervous than he already was. If he got out first ball we were well and truly gone.
Nathan blocked the first ball he got, and the second, and the third, even though it was a full toss. That was the end of the over. I went straight up to him. ‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Perfect. Now I’ll try to keep the strike till the fifth or sixth ball, so be ready to run a quick single late in the over, OK?’
‘OK,’ he said. He looked slightly more relaxed, as if getting through three deliveries had given him confidence. Three deliveries! I needed him to get through a hundred.
I scored two twos but I couldn’t get the single I wanted off the last balls, so he would have to face at the start of the next over. We had another chat mid-wicket; basically me just making encouraging noises. He blocked the first ball of the over again, but he hit it a bit harder this time, and it rolled into the covers, to a slow fieldsman. I was already backing up halfway down the wicket, so I yelled, ‘Yes!’ and raced towards Nathan. He gazed at me in shock then took off like a startled hare. The fielder fumbled the ball and Nathan made it. I think he might have made it anyway, but I was grateful for the fumble.
I hit a four and another two, then got a single off the second-last ball, meaning Nathan only had to face one ball. Unfortunately he hit it too well and called me through for a single. We had the next mid-wicket conference. He groaned, ‘I know, I’m sorry, Josh, I lost my head.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘You’re going fine.’
And he hit another single off the first ball of the next over, so that put me back on strike.
He lasted about ten overs all up, which was pretty good for him. Finally he got given LBW. It was a dodgy decision; I reckon it was pitched outside leg stump. Nothing anyone could do about it though. We were 6 for 161. Fifty runs needed for a tie, 51 to win.
Shelley came in. She’d been dropped down the order since Bromwich. It had worked when we played Ravensburg and she made 31. It didn’t work this time. She stayed for four overs but she played and missed at least six times. She had amazing luck. I was trying to get the strike but mostly I had to stand and watch from the other end. Then she swung wildly at a slower delivery and got nowhere near it. I watched in agony as the ball nicked the bail on her off stump. For a moment nothing happened, then the bail fell gently and quietly to the ground. Shelley’s luck had finally run out. Seven for 173.
Eight for 176, as Muzza played a sucker shot and was caught in the gully. Nine for 183, as Dougie came and went. While he walked off, head hanging, the umpires had a little chat. Then one of them said, ‘Last two overs.’
I couldn’t believe it. I knew the game had to finish at five, but somehow that had gone out of my head. We were in an impossible situation. Twelve balls, one wicket standing, and we needed 28 just to tie. Right then I would have grabbed a tie with both hands and fallen to the ground kissing the grass of the new oval.
Harriet was the new batsman. I remembered how she hated batting, how she wouldn’t bat when we played in the backyard. No wonder she was at number 11. I went and met her, as I’d done for everyone since Nathan. Having broken my rule once I’d now given it away completely. ‘Keep your head on,’ I told her. ‘Have a bash if it looks hittable, but don’t go crazy.’
She looked at me calmly. ‘I’ll do the best I can,’ she said.
‘Cool,’ I said. ‘So will I.’
Dougie had got out at the end of the over, so I was facing. The bowler came in, and I waited, heart pounding. The ball went down the leg side and I gambled on it being called a wide, and let it go. The umpire hesitated, and looked at me. I stared back at him, kind of daring him not to call it. He spread his arms. Bonus. That was one less run we had to get. And still twelve balls to go.
I swung at the next and mistimed it but got two. I was too tired to calculate the run rate we needed but I knew it was more than two from each ball. The boundaries on the new oval were pretty big and I wasn’t sure that I could hit many fours. And we needed fours.
I hit the next one hard and it went quite a way towards the boundary but stopped before it got there. We ran two but Harriet called for a third, which meant I was no longer on strike. I watched, heart thumping, from the bowler’s end, as she played and missed at her first ball. I glanced at the scoreboard. I might have been tired but I could still figure out the number of runs we needed. Twenty-three, with nine balls left.
To my horror Harriet took an almighty swing at the next delivery. She got an edge to it, the wickie dived across, missed it, and it raced down to the boundary for four. I raced almost as fast down the wicket, to tell her again not to go crazy. She looked a little less calm now. ‘Yeah, that was a bit close,’ she said. ‘But hey, we got four. That’s my first ever four.’
‘Congratulations,’ I said.
And she was still on strike. She connected with the next one quite well and we got a single, but that made life more complicated, because I had to try to keep the strike, and this was the last ball of the over. I needed a one or a three. I went for the big hit through the covers, looking for three, but mistimed it completely and it dribbled pathetically down the wicket. ‘Come on,’ Harriet screamed, racing towards me. I ran like a fox past her, deliberately blocking the fieldsman, and made my ground. Only one run, but at least I’d kept the strike.
For the last over they brought back their star bowler. Breathing hard I did the calculations. We needed 17 to win. I saw Harriet coming down the wicket and I went out to meet her. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you,’ she said. ‘Mr Surrey said to just block everything and go for the draw.’
‘He what?’
It had never occurred to me to go for the draw. The draw? After all that excitement? It seemed so weak. The crowd were chanting and yelling. Most of them were on our side. It was the noisiest support I’d ever had in a cricket match.
I hesitated. ‘What do you reckon?’ I asked Harriet.
‘Let’s go for glory,’ she said. ‘It’s only a game. If we win we’ll be heroes.’
I gulped. What did she mean, it was only a game? Where had she been during Red’s inspiring speech during assembly?
‘If we lose, Mr Surrey’ll come after me with an angle grinder.?
??
‘What’s an angle grinder?’
‘Not now.’
The height of the ball was unpredictable on the new wicket. The first one of the new over kept low and I hit it square of the wicket for two. The next one was an attempted yorker, but it swung just wide of off stump. I went for the drive, and I swear, I’ve never felt anything so sweet as the click of that ball coming off the middle of my bat; have never seen anything so sweet as that ball racing to the fence. Four runs. Now we had to get 11 off four deliveries. But the third one was a more successful yorker. I did well to keep it out of my stumps. Harriet came down the wicket again. ‘We have to get a four off every ball, pretty much.’
‘Thanks for the maths lesson.’
I waited for the next ball. I had to remind myself to breathe, as the bowler came striding in. He pitched it pretty short, obviously hoping it would take off my head. But it bounced lower than anyone could have expected, coming through somewhere between my waist and my chest. With a glorious sense that at last I had something I could slog, I pulled it through square wicket, remembering my follow-through. It went soaring into the distance. The fieldsman on the boundary raced around, arms outstretched. The ball seemed to be flying forever. There was screaming from the crowd as the fielder got closer and closer. He got there, and leapt for it, but it was a few centimetres above the tips of his fingers. Over the boundary, for six.
I wanted to dance around the oval waving my bat. But we still had five to get, from two balls. At least now it wasn’t mission impossible.
I waited for the next delivery, knowing we had to get some runs from it. I couldn’t hope to hit another six. This guy was a pretty good bowler. It was well pitched up but this time flew higher than I expected. I tried to cut it and managed to hit it fairly hard, but with the thick upper edge of the bat. It went straight back towards the bowler, which wasn’t part of my plan. He grabbed at it as he followed through, and he might have got a finger to it but he couldn’t stop it. The ball sped away. ‘Run,’ Harriet and I yelled at each other at the same time. We took one and came back for another. As we passed I said to her, ‘Two’s enough.’ I got in safely but I was running so hard I took a few metres to pull up. Suddenly there were screams from the spectators, and to my horror I heard Harriet screeching, ‘Run, Josh!’
I looked around. She was halfway down the pitch coming back for the third. I couldn’t believe it. I thought of shouting ‘No!’ at her but she had such a look of determination – no, make that desperation – that I realised nothing would stop her. I wheeled around and took off with maximum acceleration. If I was running like a fox before, I was running like a rabbit now. I thought, ‘Maybe this is why they call tail-end batsmen bunnies.’ I could see the fielder about to pick up the ball. As I got close to the popping crease I flattened down, with my bat out way in front of me. With more than a metre to go, I knew the fieldsman would be throwing about now. There was no point looking at him any more. All I could see were those three precious stumps, my castle of safety if I could get there. I dived and did a massive slide along the pitch. Nothing touched the stumps but suddenly I felt a smash to my right forearm. My first thought was that I’d been shot. Maybe I was remembering last night. Then I realised what had happened. The fieldsman, who was a big guy, had thrown the ball with all his strength. He’d missed the stumps and got me.
I let go the bat and kept sliding, grabbing at my arm. I crashed into the stumps. Pain was storming up and down my arm. I tried to sit up, among the wreckage, but I felt giddy. I screamed as the pain got worse, ten times worse. I might have blacked out for a moment; I’m not sure, but it seemed like Mr Surrey and Red and about a hundred other people were surrounding me and I didn’t know where they had come from. Harriet was there too, saying over and over, ‘Ohmigod Josh I’m so sorry.’
‘Take it easy, Josh,’ Mr Surrey said. ‘Try to sit up.’ I did but the pain engulfed me again and I yelled. It was like someone had just kicked me right on the same spot. I sat there in fear as Mr Surrey checked it out. I was worried that he’d give me a Chinese burn or something to make sure I wasn’t faking. But he was actually quite good, holding my arm firmly but gently and looking at my fingers. He asked me to wriggle them, but I could hardly move them.
The fieldsman’s face appeared in front of me. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said.
‘No worries,’ I muttered.
The umpires started moving the crowd back, which was good because I needed some air in my lungs. ‘Look,’ Mr Surrey said, ‘I’d say it’s probably broken, Josh. I don’t like the angle of it and I don’t like that you can’t move your fingers. But we won’t know for certain till we get you to hospital. Do you reckon you can stand up?’
‘I think so,’ I said.
I struggled to my feet. Red picked up my bat. ‘Bad luck, Tarrawagga,’ one of the umpires said. ‘You got very close. Well done.’
Red looked devastated. Harriet looked stunned. ‘Do you mean we lose?’ she asked.
‘Yes, ’fraid so,’ said the umpire. ‘If a batsman retires hurt, as Josh has to do, he can come back in later, when someone else gets out. But unfortunately you’ve run out of batsmen. Anyway, he wouldn’t have been able to come back with a broken arm.’
‘But that’s not fair,’ Harriet said. ‘They broke his arm and now they benefit from it.’
‘Sorry, but that’s the rules.’
‘Come on, Josh,’ Mr Surrey said. ‘Red, can you bring his bat? Congratulations, Maxwell, well played. Nathan, run and get an icepack from my esky. Josh, I’ll hold your arm to support you as we walk along.’
But Harriet interrupted him. ‘Listen, Josh,’ she said. ‘Do you reckon you could just stay here for the last ball? We only need two runs.’
I had to think for a minute. Yes, that was right, one ball to go, we needed one to tie, two to win, and . . . and Harriet was on strike. That was a bit of a problem. The other problem was that I couldn’t run. I’d just taken three steps away from the pitch, and each one sent a jarring pain through my arm that had me crying out. Harriet must have figured that too, because she came over and whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to run, I’ll hit a four.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mr Surrey said.
I looked at his face, then at Harriet’s, then at Red’s. It was Red who made my mind up for me. When he heard Harriet’s suggestion a light came back into his eyes. To be honest, I knew the light would only last two minutes, but I also knew we couldn’t just give up so tamely.
‘I’ll be his runner,’ Red suggested.
‘We’re playing international rules,’ the umpire who’d explained about retiring hurt said. ‘No runners for an injured batsman.’
‘That’s true,’ Mr Surrey said.
I ignored both of them. ‘I’m staying,’ I said.
The umpire frowned and said: ‘You can’t let an injured player stay on the ground, where he’ll risk further injury.’
‘Is that a rule, or just your opinion?’ Harriet asked. She said it pretty rudely, but on the other hand this umpire came from Maxwell, and he seemed pretty anxious to get us out of there. His face went red.
‘It’s a statement of the obvious,’ he said.
‘No-one can make me retire hurt,’ I said. ‘I’m not hurt. I feel fine. I’m choosing to stay out here. To keep batting.’
‘You’ve got a broken arm,’ the umpire said.
‘Are you a doctor?’ I asked. Seemed like Harriet’s rudeness was infectious. But the longer this took, the worse the pain got. I could hardly stay on my feet.
It took a few minutes, but eventually all the spectators, including Mr Surrey, had to go, leaving Harriet and me out there. ‘Are you going to be all right?’ Harriet asked me.
‘Just get on with it,’ I croaked.
Considering that she’d only ever scored one four in her entire cricket career, I thought her chances of g
etting another one were about as good as my parents’ chances of getting our money back from Antelope. But I wanted to encourage her. As she walked off towards the batting crease, I called out, ‘Don’t forget to dance.’
She looked back at me, as she marched down the pitch. ‘What? Dance?’
‘You know what I mean. Use your feet.’
‘Oh.’ She looked like she’d never heard such a weird idea before. ‘Oh. OK, I’ll dance.’
She arrived at the batting crease. She took strike. The fielders were all on their toes. The crowd was so silent you could have heard a gumnut fall. The bowler came in. I was standing well away to the side, so he wouldn’t bump me. He let fly. It was a delivery pitched on off stump, just a little full but quite a good length. Harriet danced out of her crease, got her front foot to the pitch of it, and with her head nicely over the ball, with a big backswing and a perfect follow-through, hit the prettiest shot I’d ever seen. It went far, far into the distance, over the fieldsman’s head, over the ropes, over the fence, further than the six Rolf had hit, further than the six I had hit. It landed on the roof of Mr Surrey’s car. They told me later that it made quite a dent. But by then I was swaying like a ship in a storm, and they had to get a stretcher to take me to the ambulance.
Like Woody, I was kept at the hospital overnight but next day I was back at school, with my arm in plaster. All the kids were talking about the game. Our netball team had lost 61 to 34, so most people were more interested in talking about the cricket than the netball.