Sunday 2 May
Statistics
are the curse of cricket. Nevertheless I record mine each summer. Plenty of
cricketers do.
The
rain is falling this morning, my bowling shoulder is aching and my lower back is
stiff. But I feel an inner contentment as I take a fresh sheet of paper and set
up a chart for the season:
Batting
Fielding
Bowling
Runs
Catches
Overs Runs
Wickets
1
May
-
1
12
17
4
I
try not to think about any of this when I’m on the field, though for some
cricketers it does seem to be the main point of the afternoon.
For
many years I have played for a wandering team, The Day Trippers, with a South
African, Russell, who opens the batting. At the end of every game he gets out
his fixture card, enters his score and recalculates his season’s average.
Sometimes he updates his career statistics as well.
One
year he came to the last match in the same car as another of the team’s
regulars, Toby. “He’s been on and on all journey,” Toby told us. “How he
needs 12 to keep his career average above 50, 35 for a season’s average of 50,
85 for his 1,000 runs.”
When
he reached 12, we all cheered loudly and he looked across at us with surprise.
The same thing happened at 35. As always there was a remorselessness about his
batting. He is a short man, and off the back foot he cut and pulled fours; off
the front, he dabbed the ball down and scampered quick singles. By the time he
reached 84 we were all sitting in our cars, waiting to let off a fanfare of
horns.
His
opening partner got out, and in came a chap with dodgy knees. Russell pushed the
next ball softly into the covers and set off for yet another sharp single, his
1,000th run of the summer. Only this time his partner didn’t come, and he
couldn’t get back in time.
Oh
how we laughed! And, to be fair to Russell, he saw the funny side of it, too –
though it did take him three years.
When
he first played for the team he used to look for a telephone in the pub and ring
his wife: “Cathy, it’s Russell here,” we could hear him saying. “I got
42 today … Yes, that’s 623 runs now, average 47.92.” But eventually that
faded out.
He’s
not so bad now. He’s in his fifties, a father, more mellow; he only calculates
to one decimal place.
Years
ago, when I was living in
He
was in a terrible state. His wife had walked out after eight years. She had left
him out of the blue, or so it seemed to him, for someone else – and it
wasn’t another man. I had never seen him so angry. “I don’t care,” he
said defiantly. “I’m going to play cricket every bloody day I can this
summer. I’m going to do the double. Score 1,000 runs and take 100 wickets.”
Apart
from our Sundays, he played league cricket every Saturday and, as a tax
inspector, he turned out on several midweek afternoons for the Inland Revenue
side. He joined a couple of tours. He even got up a team of his own to play in a
Wednesday evening league.
All
summer he sustained the obsession, and from time to time I enquired about his
progress towards the double. “I should be all right for the runs. I’ve got
700 already. The wickets will be touch and go, though. I’m not getting enough
bowling on Saturdays.”
He
had it all on a piece of paper, which he showed me when I called one day. It was
sitting on his desk, kept carefully separate from some tax returns which he had
brought home from work.
When
our club’s season ended in late August, he was well past the 1,000 runs,
hoping to complete his 100 wickets in a few last games here and there.
I
saw him next at the annual meeting.
“Well,
“What’s
that?”
“The
double?”
“Oh
that,” he said with a weariness. His summer’s cricket was over, and he was
finally facing up to the loneliness and hurt. “I think I did. But I’m not
quite sure. I lost the piece of paper.”