Arguing the tosser on a backyard field of cricket dreams
The thrills and agonies of a spot of backyard cricket in the summer of 1992.
Rejoice, O young man, in thy yard. Thy field of dreams. Thy yard of wonders in this summer of 1992 as the four Dalton brothers of Bracken Ridge, north Brisbane, meet once more for a spot of backyard cricket.
Standard 50-over one-day international, Australia v West Indies. A County cricket bat bought for a redback from the Sandgate hockshop. A cork cricket ball with a seam of green and gold electrical tape; a death projectile so rock hard it will shatter your kneecaps if you dare take your deer-in-the-headlights eyes off it. A Housing Commission L-shaped yard the size of two squash courts with a stiff Hill’s hoist that has stopped hoisting and grass blades taller than most African elephants. You don’t mow grass that high, you machete it. You slash and burn it. You steal a goat from a farm in nearby Bald Hills and let it eat for the entire duration of Paul Keating’s prime ministership.
Game on. Your oldest brother, Allan Border, barks the rules. Your second eldest brother, Viv Richards, finesses them. Electric wickie. Six and out. Tipsy run. There’s a macadamia tree that your dad planted when you landed here in 1989 and the ol’ man won’t enjoy a single nut from it for a decade but that tree is the sharpest bloody gully since Gus Logie. Macadamia tree on the full is out. The yard is filled with rusting white goods. Old refrigerators and washing machines from St Vinnies standing in strange and inexplicable Stonehenge formations. The Kelvinator on the full is out. Black bin for the striker’s wicket. An empty carton of Power’s Bitter for the wickets at the southern end of a pitch rougher than a prison fight. In the yard of the house behind you, the neighbour’s teenaged son, Sharpy, is messing about near a mountain of horse manure with a shifty and toothless local tough who goes by the name of Boo. That’s the sound a ghost makes. Scary backyard Boo in the Billabong shirt.
Border is off to a flyer. Twenty-four runs off eight balls. He keeps bashing the cork ball into the right-side neighbour’s fence. A big, high aluminium fortress fence, non-Houso. Puce-coloured. Real nice, real private-like for the peace and quiet. Bang. Bang. Bang. And now Border’s only four runs from a half-tonne. You’re making your short but quick-as-a-flash run up from the southern boundary fence when a lump of manure the shape of a large marshmallow hits the back of your head. You turn around to find Boo beaming in triumph, but not for long because your hero, Allan Border, has already dropped his bat and leapt thy wonder yard’s cheap and low trademark Housing Commission steel rear fence and now he’s delivering Boo a one-two punch combination that sees your assailant fall flat on his back atop the manure mountain. Smelly backyard Boo in the Billabong shirt.
Border retires, 655 not out, and at last it’s your time to bat. Crack! Six and out on the first delivery and now you have to go fetch the ball from the right-side neighbour’s yard.
Your right-side neighbour is fat and snowy-haired like Santa but he’s not kind and jolly like Santa. He’s Evil Santa from the South Pole.
“Can I grab my ball from your backyard,” you ask nervously at his front door.
“F..k off,” says Evil Santa. “I’m sick of you little s..ts banging that ball against my fence.”
Wrong answer, Evil Santa.
Dad’s been on the turps for three hours and now he’s watching his favourite miniseries, Anzacs, that he taped off the tele.
“Git the bastard!” he’s screaming at Paul Hogan on the thick glass NEC TV screen who’s about to put a bayonet through Jerry’s belly. You lean on your cricket bat as you wait for the Battle of Passchendaele to ease.
“Dad, the ball went over the fence again.”
“Well, ask F..k Knuckle if you can go get it.”
Dad’s abusive names for Evil Santa always come off casual, like he’s using any other name one might find on a birth certificate. Peter Cole. Thomas Brown. F..k Knuckle.
“I did ask but he told me to f..k off.”
Dad strangles a packet of Nobby’s nuts in his right fist.
“Don’t swear!” he barks. “And hand me that f..kin’ bat.”
Bang. Bang. Bang. Dad in the backyard standing slightly right of the cricket crease smashing a $20 hockshop County cricket bat against a puce-coloured fence.
“Git out ’ere ewwwwwww baaaastard!” he screams.
Dad wants Evil Santa to step on to his landing and explain himself, rationally. Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Git out ’ere ewwwwwww prrrrrrick!”
Evil Santa’s not coming out. Then Dad starts to wheeze because he smokes too much.
“Guess he doesn’t wanna chat?” Dad says.
Then Dad drops the bat in the middle of the pitch and wobbles back inside the house for another smoke. Silence across the field of dreams. Allan Border tilts his eyes up to the sun falling over the yard of wonders. He turns his head back to Viv Richards and he shrugs.
“Wanna play Nintendo?”
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