The Grade Cricketer: Tea and No Sympathy by Dave Edwards

Author:Dave Edwards
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2017-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

8

ENLIGHTENMENT

For so long I’d yearned for the chance to start again, to deconstruct and reinvent myself into the person I wanted to be. It’s in that spirit that I’d enrolled in university, with the explicit goal of making a positive change in my life. I would study literature and politics at a prestigious university and surround myself with critical thinkers. These would be my enlightenment years. Much like the intellectual and philosophical movement of eighteenth century Europe, I would engage in energetic, spirited discussions about politics, literature, history and science. There would be a free and open exchange of ideas where there was no wrong answer, and where ‘out of the box’ thinking was encouraged and fostered. A place where I could question the traditional ideas and ways of doing things. In short, the absolute opposite of what I’d been doing for the last decade.

Making any kind of change requires a positive attitude—intent—and that was the key word on my mind that first day at university. Decked out in a neatly pressed collared shirt, I had waited patiently at the bus stop for a full sixteen minutes before its arrival, which allowed me 4 overs’ worth of shadow batting with my golf umbrella. Unfortunately, I was beaten all ends up on my second ball to one that jagged away sharply, with the third slip taking a good catch low down to his right. But now, just a few weeks later, I’d practically have to sprint to get the bus each morning, despite it being at 10.53 a.m. My sleep-ins were getting longer and longer and my clothes increasingly resembled pyjamas. Hoodies replaced collared shirts; trackpants replaced chinos; thongs replaced loafers. Arriving on campus each morning, however, did fill me with a certain sense of hope—at least for a little while. In contrast to cricket, it was unlikely that hope would kill me here.

I still remember that first day on campus, how the gentle kiss of the late-morning sun cut through the breeze. The trees, mid-blossom, swayed before the sandstone buildings that had hosted some of our society’s greatest minds—and tens of thousands of other dropouts. The lawns were impeccably maintained and perfectly symmetrical, not an inch of tatty grass to be seen.

Outfield looks fast.

One of the worrying side effects of spending a lifetime on various sporting fields was that I could no longer view any patch of grass without considering how a ball would run across it. Would it snake? Would I be able to take on the man at mid-off, trusting that it would bobble in his hands before he had a chance to throw the stumps down at the bowler’s end? These were unnatural, unhealthy thoughts. But they were there. I’m almost positive that no one else thought of this. To everyone else, this was just a nice, even coverage of couch, a good place to catch up on some readings from the prescribed textbook.

Naturally, just four weeks into my university education I was skipping lectures and tutorials as if they were preseason beach runs.

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