by Brett Lee
Scott took another wicket in his next over, clean-bowling the batsman and sending the off-stump cartwheeling back towards Martian, our wicket keeper.
I was used as a first-change bowler. Sometimes I opened, but I think Mr Pasquali liked to give the opposition a break from having to face two fast bowlers first up.
I wasn’t as quick as Scott, though I didn’t try for flat-out pace. I was working on swinging the ball through the air and trying to perfect a slower delivery.
My first ball was a full-length delivery outside off-stump. The batsman took a swing at it and missed. I repeated the delivery with my next ball, but this time put it out a fraction wider. Again the batter went for the ball, and this time it caught the edge of his bat and flew through to Martian. He took a neat catch in front of Jono at first slip.
My other wicket came in my third over. It was an attempted slower ball that would have been called a wide. But the batter reached out for it and flat-batted it out to cover. Scott Craven took the catch.
Scott picked up another two wickets himself to add to his earlier two.
Cameron, Georgie and Jono each got one wicket. The last wicket was a run-out. We ended up having to score 109 runs to win. Mr Pasquali must have been confident because he changed the batting line-up. Martian was pushed down to number seven, my normal spot, and I went up to number four.
Jono and Cameron put on 47 runs before Cameron was bowled. I got my first bat of the season after Rahul was run out for only five. He had lost his glasses halfway up the pitch and for a moment it looked as if he was going to stop and pick them up.
Jono and I put on another 30 runs before Jono was caught on the boundary for 33. By then we had scored 88 and the game was as good as over. Jay strode out to the wicket. He normally batted further down the order too.
Mr Pasquali retired me on 25 not out. Gavin came in and left almost as quickly, clean-bowled for a duck. Then Scott Craven blasted two sixes to win the game for us.
We batted on until we’d faced the same number of overs we had bowled. You got bonus points for batting and for bowling—a point for every 30 runs and for every two wickets. We ended up making 164. I couldn’t wait to check the paper to see how the other teams had gone.
It was a good first-up win. Nothing spectacular, as Mr Pasquali said, just a solid all-round team performance.
After the game I asked Georgie what she was doing that afternoon, and when she said nothing, I said I’d get online at about four o’clock, as I had some news for her. I wanted to tell her about my conversation with Jim at the Melbourne Cricket Club library, and I particularly wanted to show her the poem that Jim had given me. She’d take that seriously, even if she didn’t believe anything else I said.
We liked to chat online and had made a chatroom for ourselves last year, when we’d first started playing together in the same team. We called it CROC—Cricketer’s Room of Chat. It was a bit like a secret club, I suppose, but cricket was the general theme. I suppose we could have just used the phone, but somehow it was more fun chatting over the Internet. The other bonus was that suddenly Jay or Rahul or Martian could jump in and join the conversation.
I logged on just before four o’clock. Georgie was the only other person logged into the room.
Georgie: so, what’s news?
Toby: maybe i sh have told you earlier…you rem. the old guy in the lib at the mcg?
Georgie: yeah.
Toby: well, this’ll sound v stupid but i think i have this gift that makes me able to travel in time. georgie, you there?
Toby: hey! georgie…
Georgie: yeah, i’m here. toby?
Toby: yeah.
Georgie: you’re an idiot!
Toby: i know. but it’s true.
Georgie: are we going to keep on with this, cos i’ve got better things to do.
Toby: wait. i’ve got a poem for you.
Georgie: that sounds better. when did you write it?
Toby: i didn’t. but you’ll like it. scanning now.
I pulled the piece of paper out of my desk drawer, and, keeping it in its plastic pocket, placed it on the scanner. A moment later I was waiting for Georgie to accept the file I was about to send.
Toby: what do you think? georgie?
But that was the last I heard from her. She was either totally sick of the whole idea of time travel, or else of reading the poem and trying to work out just what the heck it meant. I guessed I’d find out. Eventually.
I caught up with Georgie at recess the following Monday.
‘Interesting poem, Toby. Where’d you get it?’
I explained everything to her, not leaving out any details. It was actually good to say it all out loud. She listened carefully, without interrupting.
‘That’s it?’ she said, when I had finished.
‘So far, yes.’
She looked at me for a moment. Slowly a smile spread across her face.
‘Like I said, great poem. Can I keep it?’
‘Of course. But what about the rest? You know, the Wisden cricket book stuff? The wishy-washy writing?’
‘Well, go back to the MCG and do it. That’s the only way to prove anything.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ I asked her.
‘I believe you, Toby, but I sure don’t believe anything else.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that I don’t think you would make up all this to trick me, but I think someone else has made it all up to trick you.’
Georgie sure had good logic. You could never argue with her. About anything.
‘Okay, maybe you’re right,’ I said. ‘Will you come with me next time I go?’
‘What, to the library?’
‘Yeah. You can meet Jim yourself.’
‘Okay, but I won’t hold my breath or anything.’
‘Cool. Hey, did you book the gym for lunchtime tomorrow?’
‘Yep. And I’m bringing a friend too.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘You’ll see,’ she said mysteriously, and then turned and headed off towards a group of kids near the playground.
Monday—afternoon
The great thing about having Mr Pasquali as our teacher was that he let you do a sport project of your choice. For this one we could just concentrate on cricket. Later in the year we could do another cricket project, but that one would have to have a history and culture theme.
After school that day, Rahul and Jay came around so we could work on our projects together.
Rahul was doing the Tied Test that happened way back in 1986 between India and Australia. Being Indian himself, Rahul was pumped to be working on something so close to his heart. It was close to his family too. They came from Madras (now called Chennai), the place where the match was played, and migrated to Australia not long after it took place.
I was doing my assignment on the 1999 cricket World Cup. Jay had finally decided to study Don Bradman. He had changed his mind about four times.
Even Craven was putting in a huge effort. He was doing the Bodyline series, and was using a computer program to put together a whole lot of pictures, and even some film (so he said). I didn’t tell him, but I was actually looking forward to when we would all present our assignments. He’d chosen an awesome topic.
Dad came in at one stage and asked whether we had other homework to do. ‘Yeah, sure, Dad,’ I replied. ‘I’ll get on with it after the others leave.’
As Dad was rummaging through some of my books, a little card fell out. I hadn’t even noticed it myself.
‘Hey, this sounds good,’ he said. ‘You never told me about the MCG excursion. How was it?’
‘Bit weird,’ Jay said before I had a chance to speak.
‘Nah, it was okay, Dad. There was this nice old guy…’
‘Strange, more like it.’
I glared at Jay.
‘This nice old guy who was looking after the library there. He must have slipped that card into one of my books when they were on the tab
le.’
‘Well,’ said Dad, ‘it sounds interesting enough. “Slip through the ages of time. A journey of discovery for all your cricket research. Get lost in another world.” Well, well. Rather a full-on advertisement for a library of old books, eh, boys?’
Dad loved his cricket as much as anyone.
‘Let’s all go down sometime soon, hey? I’d love to see this place. Maybe Georgie would like to come, as well? You could all do some more work on your projects.’
Dad liked Georgie. Being a bit of a writer himself, he was forever talking poems and stuff with her when she came round. And Georgie, of course, loved the attention.
‘Yeah, that would be great, Dad,’ I said as he flipped the card over to me.
‘Sounds good to me, Mr Jones,’ added Rahul.
‘Great. How about Wednesday? Cricket training’s on Tuesday and Thursday, isn’t it?’
‘Wednesday’d be great, Dad,’ I said, not sure if I was ready to go back to the library just yet.
Between March 1979 and March 1994 Allan Border (Australia) did not miss a Test match. This amounted to 153 consecutive Test match appearances. This put Border 47 Test matches ahead of his nearest rival, Sunil Gavaskar, from India.
4 The Gym
Tuesday—afternoon
THE gym was booked; Georgie hadn’t forgotten. I often met up with friends there at the start of lunchtime and usually other kids would call by and end up joining in. Even Jimbo had stopped in for a look one lunchtime a few weeks back. He sat on one of the long benches at the back of the gym and watched. He was eating a salad roll. I remember this because you are not allowed to eat in the gym. But no one was going to mention this little rule to Jimbo.
We played with three pieces of equipment: a stump for a bat, a set of kanga wickets and a tennis ball that was half-covered with black tape. It swung like crazy.
We picked a couple of teams.
‘Where’s your secret friend?’ I asked Georgie as I took my place behind the stumps to be keeper. Martian, the regular keeper, said he had a bit of a headache and was sitting out this game.
‘She’ll be here soon. And when she gets here, I want her to have a go at keeper, okay?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ I said.
Rahul whacked the first ball back past Jay and into the back wall for four. He had a great eye—even if he did wear glasses—and it always looked as if he was playing with a real bat.
‘Hey, Georgie, I’m here.’
A tall girl with long hair was standing at the door. I had seen her before, though she wasn’t in any of my classes.
‘Hey, Ally,’ Georgie called out. ‘Get in here. Toby, get out in the field, would you? Ally, go behind the stumps and just grab the ball if it comes your way, okay?’
‘Watch out, Marshall, looks like a girl’s gonna take your keeping job,’ said Scott Craven, who had just arrived with Gavin Bourke. I wondered if they had come with Ally.
I looked over at Martian to see if he would react to this teasing from Craven. But amazingly, he had his eyes closed and his head tilted up towards the roof.
I walked over to him.
‘Hey, Martian, you okay?’
He didn’t open his eyes but smiled slightly and put one thumb up in the air. ‘Sort of. Bit of a headache, but I’ll be okay.’
Meanwhile, Ally had got herself behind the stumps and was waiting for Jay to bowl. It was a wide one. Ally took it easily and flicked it back, low and hard, to Jay.
‘Okay? Now can I go?’
‘Ally! C’mon,’ said Georgie. ‘You said you’d stay for at least 10 minutes.’
‘Okay, 10 minutes. Nine now. Let’s do it!’
She was amazing. She didn’t miss a ball. And most of the deliveries went to her as most of us still couldn’t hit the ball with a stump. Her throws were neat and strong too. True to her word, though, she waved goodbye to Georgie about 10 minutes later and headed out the door.
‘Hey, Ally, did you enjoy it?’ Georgie called.
‘Yeah. Actually it was good. I’d like to stay, but I’ve got some stuff to catch up on.’
‘Ally’s a good keeper, huh?’ Georgie said, as we headed off to afternoon class.
‘Awesome,’ I replied.
‘She plays representative softball. She’s the catcher. I just thought it would be interesting to see if she could handle being a keeper.’
‘No problems there. Does she want to play?’ I asked.
‘Not sure.’
‘You want to add to that answer?’ Jay asked.
Georgie thought for a moment.
‘No.’
‘Pity,’ Jay responded.
We all turned. Martian had joined us, obviously having heard our conversation. Suddenly he stopped and headed for the library.
‘Hey, Martian,’ Georgie called out, ‘I don’t mean for her to take your place.’
But Martian didn’t turn around. He kept on walking.
‘Bummer! Toby, will you see him in class this arvo?’ Georgie asked.
‘Yeah, I’ll talk to him.’
‘Thanks. I really didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that it’d be nice to have another girl in the team, you know.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I said.
As it turned out, I didn’t catch up with Martian during the afternoon. He didn’t show up at all. Instead, I spent a lot of the lesson thinking about how weird the MCG excursion had been. Jay didn’t seem to want anything to do with it and Georgie didn’t believe me. At least she didn’t believe the time travel bit. I needed to talk to someone smart, someone straight. Someone who’d call it as he saw it. I thought of Jimbo.
Jimbo always took a bus home from school, but it didn’t leave until 10 to four. I seized my moment.
‘Hiya, Jimbo.’
He looked at me and nodded. Not mean, or angry. Almost a bit surprised.
‘Can I ask you something?’
Again Jimbo nodded, without speaking.
‘Well, you know how we had that excursion last week, and I went to the MCG? Well, there was this guy, an old guy…like, a really old guy actually…’
‘Yeah?’
‘His name’s Jim. Jim Oldfield.’
Jimbo was looking at me politely, waiting for me to finish.
‘Well, he told me some really weird stuff—’
‘Like what?’
It was hard to know where to start, as I knew the whole thing was going to sound stupid. A bus pulled up. Jimbo turned to look at it, then turned back to me.
‘So?’
‘Nah, it’s okay, Jimbo. Doesn’t matter. Is that your bus?’
‘Nope. Tell me, Toby. What did he say? You said it was weird. I want to know.’
It took a few minutes, but I told him everything. I even dragged the poem out of my pocket and showed it to him. Jimbo didn’t say anything. He just shook his head and whistled softly.
Another bus had pulled up.
‘This one’s mine. See ya, and thanks for telling me all that.’
He picked up his bag and climbed onto the bus.
And then I realised that I hadn’t asked him the one question I really wanted to know the answer to: why he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, play cricket for us. Maybe one day I would go and visit Jimbo and try to find out.
In an 1884 Test match between Australia and England, all 11 players, including the keeper, got to bowl for England. Guess who got the most wickets? Yes! The keeper! His figures were 12 overs, 5 maidens, 4/19. The first 200 scored in a Test match occurred in this game: Billy Murdoch made 211 out of Australia’s 551.
5 The Cricketer
Wednesday—afternoon
WHEN school finished I walked over to the car park behind the gym and met up with Jay and Rahul. Georgie arrived a few minutes later. She was coming to the MCG too and then staying at my house for dinner.
‘Did you speak to Martian, Toby?’ Georgie asked.
‘I didn’t see him all day. He told me in the gym at lunchtime yesterday that he was feeling sick, s
o maybe he went home.’
‘Georgie, get real. Your friend Ally won’t play cricket. She’s too pretty to play cricket.’
Oh, boy. Jay had just put his foot in it. Big time.
‘What?’ Georgie said to him, in a hissing tone.
‘Well, I mean, she doesn’t look the type, that’s all,’ Jay stammered.
‘Georgie, tell Ally what Jay said and then maybe she’ll play cricket,’ said Rahul.
We all looked at him, a bit perplexed.
‘You lot coming to the MCG?’ a voice yelled at us from an open car window a moment later.
Dad had arrived.
We piled our bags into the boot and jumped in.
‘Crikey, you kids don’t know how lucky you are. Getting to do projects on cricket! Can you believe it? In my day it was the Battle of Hastings and the Peasants’ Revolt.’
Dad chatted most of the way, and each of us was left to our own thoughts. I could imagine what some of those thoughts were.
Georgie would be wondering about how to get Ally playing cricket without hurting Martian’s feelings. Jay would be angry with himself for saying the first thing that came into his head, and he’d be thinking of a way to get back into Georgie’s good books.
‘Hey, Georgie, you want me to try to hunt out that book of cricket poems my uncle gave me for Christmas last year?’
(See, what did I tell you?)
And Rahul? Actually, I wouldn’t have a clue what Rahul would be thinking. I turned to look at him. He was staring out the window and smiling as we turned into the MCG car park. Probably smiling at Jay’s comment. Then again, it’s just as likely that he was thinking about something else.
As for me, I was getting a bit nervous about seeing Jim again, especially having Dad and the others with me.