I'm looking forward to passing a bunch of fat lawers on those in the near future.....

"Yeah, mines about 18.7lbs, nothin special. How much does yours weigh? 15lbs? Man, that's light. Oh well....seeya!"

Hope me opening my yappa for a start didn't get you in trouble.

Man, you fellas should have seen cricket today. I've never seen anything like it. They batted first. Got 180. We batted second. Got 72. I opened the batting and got 52 not out. Last man in got 12. There was 2 extras. My team is excellent.

Oh, now I get it; the Giant stuff.




Hmmmm, that IS a good team.
Don't forget, cricket is about calculators and averages -- in other words, individual glory.

Haha. lol. Actually, since you mention it, I was having a laugh with one of my mates this evening. When I was young and at the peak of my powers I was known to have a very poor attitude about my cricket. You see cricket is supposed to be a team game. The greater glory of the whole is supposed to come before the glory of the individual. But I let it be known that my idea of the perfect game was me getting 100 not out and the team being bowled out for 110. Just to show how much superior to the rest of my team mates I was. I was an arrogant prick. Todays effort was kind of a reflection of that and my mate was giving me heaps for it as well. They'll never let me live that down.

Ha! Join the club. Arrogant??!!?? When I was 19, I thought I was Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Simon Le Bon and Greg Chappell rolled into one

Me and my mates had a similar attitude toward our cricket when we were in our late teens.
We took our batting and bowling seriously (we practiced more than anyone at the club)
but we couldn't work out why the older guys at the club took their "park" cricket so fkn seriously.

We thought it might've been us, but we later realised that most of them had NO/SH1T lives,
so winning and losing meant the world. Man...all that talk it up, and stop cracking jokes
in slips....JEEEZ

I was OBSESSED with cricket when I was about 16/17. If it was a nice day, me and my mate used to wag school, get the clubroom keys off the coach, roll the
mats out, buy a new ball, then bowl flat out at each other from about 14 meters
for about 2 hrs!

I gave up and went to race me pushy because I decided a cyclist
relies less on luck than does a batsman. I remember one time, this bowler, who I thought was sh1t, got
me out early, so I cracked the sads, and kicked my helmet all the way back to the fence

Farking ROFLMFAO!!!!

What a combo!!!

Me and my mates had a similar attitude toward our cricket when we were in our late teens.
We took our batting and bowling seriously (we practiced more than anyone at the club)
but we couldn't work out why the older guys at the club took their "park" cricket so fkn seriously.

Yeah, same. But little did I know I'd turn out to be them. (No life bit. However I'm a clown on the field. )

Man. That's no good you left off for so long then. That much practice you must have been getting somewhere.

Yeah, you're right. Cricket is all about luck. I had a bit of luck today. Calculated luck though. I seem a lot luckier with my cricket these days that when I was young. Mostly because I don't allow bad luck to befall me as much. Like today on a tricky pitch. I think it took me 2 overs to even hit a single ball. And when I did I was defensive until I got the speed and bounce of the pitch. All our young batsmen just went out trying to play glorious coverdrives from the first ball. Our best bat tried to hit their best bowler over mid off the first ball. He only lasted 1 ball. Sure it was in the slot. But the pitch wasn't playing like a normal pitch. He thought he was unlucky. I didn't.

What level and surface do you play?

We have a strange situation here. It used to be Bathurst had it's own comp, and Orange had it's own. Then a few years back, they combined the Bathurst and Orange first grades so you had to be travelling to the other town all the time (I was in my layoff when this happened). I wasn't interested in travelling so I came back to second grade. It was pretty easy back then. However now it seems most have the same idea as me, so now our second grade has sides that were playing first grade last year and the year before, and is almost as strong as firsts. So no more easy runs for me.

We play on turf with 2 piece balls (Swing a mile. Firsts use 4 piece). Unlike the old days as well, they don't cover the pitches anymore. So if it rains, unless the pitch is a quagmire, we play (like today). Much like in the olden days I guess.

Best level I ever got up to was country trials when I was 16 (hence the Glen McGrath story).

My mate was the one with the talent, but I got him into pumping weights, so he decided
he'd rather spent three nights a week at the gym than at cricket practise. In his last season in about 1985, got paid about $3000 to play park cricket.

If you're into your cricket you'll find this interesting:

When I made my disastrous "comeback" at age 32
(quite pathetic, spent $1000 on gear -- yeah, one of those guys), my mate with the talent
was standing behind the nets one day, watching me bat. I was struggling, so he started calling the shot i should play for each ball. To my eye, he seemed to be calling the shot before the bowler even got his arm up to his ear!! I couldn't believe how early he was picking the length of each ball, which, to me, was WAY before the bowler let the ball go......AMAZING. I then decided it'a all eyesight


You obviously "play the percentages" with
luck: the better players seem to get less unplayable balls, etc, but that's coz they're better.

[QUOTE=badsac] Unlike the old days as well, they don't cover the pitches anymore. At least you get more days off. Twenty (or so) days of cricket is too much

I think I missed the Glen McGrath story. Please, regale me

Yeah, when I'm playing well I can picky where the ball is going to end up when it reaches me straight out of the hand. Happens very rarely these days.

Can't believe your mate was paid to play "park" cricket. What kind of a comp is that? I thought only the top couple of grades got paid in big city cricket?


Yeah like today. Amazing how an unplayable ball can turn into a pedestrian ball when you play with your bat and pad together.

What's even more amazing is that it was about 1987!!

It was just the Moorabbin comp, but back then, even though most clubs (typically) had no money, there
was about three clubs (one was in Brighton -- la di da) who raised stacks of money through (I think)
church groups, bingo, and crap like that. So, intheir desperation to pinch a flag, they poached players from other clubs with anywhere from 3 to 7 grand!!! Put plenty of noses out of joint with a few 30 year olds who'd spent 20+ years at a club, chasing the money, then wanting to come back two years later

Oh, it's a sad one. When I was 16, I was quite good and they sent me to the under 19 country NSW trials. They played a few trial games to see how good everyone was. I played for Central Western NSW, and we played against Northern. I was an opening bat. Anyway they had a tall thin opening bowler. He came in. First ball on off stump defended. Second one a bit wider, left alone. Third one short of a length on middle stump so I turned it away for two. Obviously 2 runs against him was to much so the next ball he dug it in shorter. Up until that time I had a curious ability that used to impress people of being able to use flexible wrists to play eye height and even height balls with a straight bat and turn them for runs with no risk (never had got out to it). This one was only chest height but I decided I'd try that with this ball. Anyway, it was probably a bit fast and a bit wide or something but I got an outside edge straight to first slip. Gone in the first over. Geez weren't the central western luminaries pissed. Anyway, went out and had a look at the scorebook. And who was the bowler? G McGrath. Two imposing talents came together that day ( ). Only one carried on. I could have spanked him around that day and who knows where we'd both be now? Unfortunatley, that's not the case. So ends my brief flirtation with fame.

I just wasn't hungry enough.

Did it work?

I can't remember if they won any flags, but pretty much all of the guys ended up back at
their old clubs.

It's just too brutal spending all that
time in the field when you're young, when all you can think about is BEER and CHICKS!!!

So, he didn't seem lightening quick to you? That's a feather in the cap.

I used to play in a local cover band that was quite popular, so this younger guy from the
neighbourhood, who recently finished playing cricket for Prahran 'firsts', used to think I was "cool"
(for NO good reason, I can assure you).

Anyway, every time I saw him, he was like: "what's it like to play on stage at that place in front of all those people?" And I'd be like: "yeah, whatever.....what's it like to face Damien Flemming and Mick Lewis?"

I got it out of him, he reckons Flemming was every bit as quick as Mick Lewis.

Ah don't get me wrong. I hadn't faced anything much quicker up to that point. He was plenty fast for me.

Who's Mick Lewis?

Plays for Victoria. I think he took a bag in last year's final.

Farkin 'ell. Someone isn't keeping up with his domestic cricket then. Never heard of him. Try to ignore those damn victorians as much as I can though.

So I think I heard you were in a band or something? You not playing tonight?

I didn't wanna sound like a muso w@nker, it's just every time I bumped into my cricketing neighbour,
all he wanted to talk about was guitars, and all I would talk about was him facing Damien Flemming
in district cricket.

You may have heard the Mick Lewis storey, he was that guy (from the country, I think) who only decide to get serious with his cricket at about age 24. He then casually rocks up to Northcote training, bowling
at about 140kmh, and knocks over a few established batsmen..... Sound familiar?

What about the Simon Cook storey: he bowled in 2 tests in 1998 against New Zealand, took
a "five fa", got run over by a tractor in the off season, then struggled even to play sheild cricket
after this. He went from Victoria to NSW in about 2001 to try to get a game.

I played one season of cricket, and slowly made my way from 2nd drop to never mind. Ended up scoring my only runs in the last game to finish with an average of <0.3 !!!

Mind you, I love one day keg games. Except for the rule about having to run a lap of the oval if you spill your beer or hit someone elses. That rule sucks.

Umm. Nup. Where's Northcote btw?


Yeah I remember him but never knew what happened to him. Silly move going to NSW. They've got enough fast bowlers.


That's what I call bad luck munchie.

As for keg cricket. I don't know what it is but I suck at it. I usually have a swing and a bowl then go talk to the wimin before I embarrass myself any furthur.

Oh hey btw. Do you guys ever have days where you just hate riding? I had one of those today. Bloody big headwind the whole way out which was chilling me to much. Bloody muscles didn't want to pedal since they were still in running mode from the day before. Got the ***** after about an hour when I realised I'd forgot to put the seat back to slightly nose down from the slightly nose up that the noobs here seem to think is the best way to have it. Don't know about them, but it just gives me a bloody sore whatyoucallit. So had the sh1t's and turned around early. At least had a tailwind going back. Until I stopped in at my sisters house for half an hour. When I came back out the wind had swung around to being a headwind again. Grrrr. Farkin hated it.

All that with the new bike maybe coming tommorrow. Has me worried that I'm over riding just as I outlay big dough on a decent bike.