As we approach the end of summer I want to share about my cricket team I help coach and the great year we had last season.
I helped my neighbours under/12s team play and we ended up winning the premiership. This was a great result considering my previous experience in cricket was muck-around back yard games or with the school team. This past season, that just finished, and we came in 3rd overall and were knocked out in the semi-finals.
It was a good year that came up short but we look forward to next summer.
One day during training for the school team I told my team about my ‘man of the match’ performance for a bit of inspiration. The story follows.
Inter-school Sport
I always enjoyed high school ‘inter-school sport’. The chance to leave the school grounds for an afternoon and verse another school in various sports was a nice difference to the routine of school life. The rivalries amongst other local schools always provided great banter and everyone enjoyed themselves.
The summer sport was always cricket, and being selected at the bottom of the order was fine by me. I was happy to play anywhere and do my part in the field.
One game we had a middle order slump and I was rushing to get my pads, helmet and bat to get out into the middle. With a few over’s remaining, our P.E teacher told me to just bash it around.
The bowler came in and bowled it outside leg stump. I swung my bat and it hit a four! I don’t know who was more shocked, me, the bowler or my P.E teacher. It was my first boundary in cricket. But I struggled to keep my face straight to hide how excited I was.
My next shot I ran for a quick two, then another four. In the next over I shot yet another four, and with the final ball of our innings I cracked a six straight over the bowler’s head. Twenty runs in eight balls faced! It was quite unexpected. Still, we had to now bowl out the other team as this would of been all for nothing.
Midway through our fielding innings our captain tossed me the ball to have a bowl. So I went to the crease and bowled my usual right-arm off break. Within three overs of bowling I had taken two wickets for fourteen runs and we had won the match!
Opening the batting
After the game our P.E teacher told us all that I had received the man of the match and would be batting top of the order in the next game. How nervous I was to stand on the crease at the next game and see the bowler come screaming in, firing the cherry leather ball at my wicket. I managed a noble one before getting lbw and returning back to the sideline.
I was subsequently returned back to my spot on the lower order which was fine by me as I often read a book while waiting for my turn at the crease.
It was a very unexpected rise, and if you would have said that I would score 20 runs and bowl 2/14 in a game I would of said “impossible”, but as the Bible says, “Nothing is Impossible with God”.
With glazed eyes the kids had gone to screen-saver mode as I regaled the group with another of my ‘glory days’ stories. By the time I’d finished, I could tell they were glad it was over so they could go back to training and prepare ahead for the next summer.
Christopher Archibald lives in Sydney and is a Youth Leader at New Life Christian Church in Blacktown. A voracious reader, he ploughs through many books in a calendar year, with a bookcase that is constantly being rearranged to accommodate new additions.
Christopher Archibald's previous articles may be viewed at
www.pressserviceinternational.org/christopher-archibald.html