Bowling Through India by Justin Brown

Author:Justin Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby

At breakfast in the hotel we discovered John already seated, slurping coffee. Due to unfavourable time differences he’d been on the phone all night. Mr Straya and his wife were seated at the next table. Eager to hear stories from our trip rather than his wife’s shoe-shopping escapades, he asked how many games we had managed to play.

‘Six,’ said Stew, spreading another dollop of honey on his toast.

‘Six, well done!’ said Mr Straya. ‘And how many have you won?’

‘It’s three-all,’ I replied.

‘Close series!’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘You’ll have to bring in the big guns soon. Maybe you need a few Aussies on your team.’

‘That would be helpful,’ said Stew. ‘Considering we couldn’t chase down a score of four in Darjeeling.’

‘It was a tough pitch,’ I said.

‘They were eight,’ Brendon replied.

Mr Straya laughed and said he wished he wasn’t going shoe-shopping after breakfast.

With a few hours to fill before John flew to Cairo we took Vicky behind the hotel’s bike sheds. A large open field with a ‘Beware of snakes’ sign became our makeshift pitch for only our second practice of the tour. We managed to convince a hotel worker to join us. The last thing we wanted was to see him fired, but we needed new blood — a fresh bowler with a tricky action and unpredictable tactics. Sadly, this player wasn’t to be it. Yet although he batted like a blindfolded toddler and peered over his shoulder for his boss more than at the ball, it seemed to make his day. Once we had distributed his left arm dibbly-dobblies all over the park, we allowed him to resume his duties.

And then there were four. Never in a million years did we think it would end like this, with John standing alongside the Goldfish Bowl, waving, smiling, agonising. It was only natural that he would be jealous. He had been having as great a time as the rest of us. The best time of his life had now turned to the worst. We waved. He waved. And we parted ways in the City of Death and Misery and Life. Varanasi, no longer a legend from a dusty school atlas, now harboured smells, feelings and consternation. I can’t rule out ever going back. John, however, would be forgiven for taking to the damn place with an industrial strength blowtorch, his second-cousin dousing and defending the city behind him.

The drive to the airport was short, even pleasant. Maybe we didn’t realise how eager we were to get out of Bad Luck Town. And although it seemed technically impossible, Wasim’s trousers were actually tighter than two days previous. As he walked towards the airport terminal with us in tow, I wondered how half-pants could be more offensive than a pair of slacks from CHiPs. It was as if Rod Stewart’s Indian half-brother had thrown in his music career for one of getting Kiwis into the biggest travel mess of the century. Okay, that’s not entirely fair. It’s wasn’t all his fault, but you’ve got to blame someone.

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