Sacrificing the Manchester Derby for a game of cricket

I’ll put my football credibility on the line here and come clean with what I did on the weekend. As you may or may not know, but can probably divulge from my username, I am a huge football fan, particularly obsessed with Man Utd.

I watched 40+ games last season (only a few in person, unfortunately), their entire Asian pre-season tour (often on very grainy, very dodgy websites, as I had no other choice) and I’ve watched all their games this season, including those of the reserves up until the weekend.

But Sunday forced me into a very difficult dilemma: should I watch my beloved United take on fierce rivals City, or play cricket.

Normally, I would have chosen to watch the game hands down. It was, after all, the first Manchester derby since City’s spending spree, not to mention Tevez’s cross-town transfer and it was bound to be a belter.

But this was no ordinary Sunday.

I had been contacted by some cricket fanatics who were meeting up for a hit-out. It’s been five years since I wielded the willow, a long time by anyone’s standards.

I’ve had two serious knee injuries, lived on four continents and travelled the world in that time, so a lot has changed. But my passion for the game hasn’t, and it’s not every day you get the chance to play cricket in Germany.

I knew about the scheduling conflict as early as Monday and I left my decision until the very last minute. Only waking up on Sunday, opening the shutters and having the sunlight flood in sealed the deal for me.

I couldn’t spend a mid-September day inside knowing the fickle weather is just a few weeks away – cricket had won.

So I packed my gear, well, my box, as that’s all I had with me, and went to catch the train.

I missed my bat.

I spent weeks hand-crafting it myself, having purchased the willow from a bat maker, as I didn’t like the sweetspots in conventional bats. But it’s in storage back in Australia, along with my pads etc.

So I had organised to borrow some gear. I wasn’t going to let a minor detail like that spoil it for me.

The train ride was long. In fact, I had to travel interstate to reach my destination as there aren’t many cricket lovers where I live.

But it gave me 2 hours and 20 minutes to read Michael Slater’s very overrated autobiography, “Slats”.

So after my long journey, I finally reached the “field.” Well, a “temporary solution” is what it was best called.

It was a two metre wide asphalt footpath at an inner city park with trees all over the place. At about Silly mid-on, there was a lamp-post, at bat-pad, a garbage bin, and a few saplings made up a slips-cordon.

The coach had laid about 3 square metres of that synthetic green stuff used to cover concrete pitches at a good length on the path and unwrapped 3 brand-spanking dukes sent over by his brother in London.

Ahmed took guard and I went to about fourth slip, with the saplings at 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

I was very nervous.

Waqeer, one of the first bowlers, looked pretty sharp, and as the synthetic mat wasn’t covering much, the balls had a tendency to spit around off the asphalt or dart away when hitting the edge of the matting. An edge off the 5th ball whizzed by me.

I got a chance to bowl pretty early on. My teammates – 7 Indians, 4 Pakistani’s and a Bangladeshi – all started talking amongst themselves.

It seemed they were interested to see the only white guy in action.

So I marked out a 10 pace run. While I used to bowl a mean leggie back in the day, I was the type who’d have figures of 2-26 off two overs, bowling the odd gem amongst my stock ball, the half-tracker.

But after my shoulder troubles a while back, I couldn’t put too much work on it, so I decided a simple medium-pace would be best.

My first ball hit the middle of off-stump and I lit up inside. It was a great feeling watching the stumps (three copper pipes in a piece of 2×4) fall over and clang on the asphalt.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do a lot after that. I bowled two leggies once I’d warmed up a bit, but they both got slogged, so I went back to field, desperate for a bat.

I got my chance about 45 minutes later, and by now the butterflies were really having a party in my stomach.

My first ball was a half volley on leg stump from the right-arm weird bowler (he wasn’t spinning it, just had the strangest arm action) which was duly punished – a long flat hit over widish mid-on which hit a tree half way up.

The second, a good delivery on off-stump from a Shoaib lookalike, who bowled at half his pace, was respectfully blocked, and the third, a full half-volley from the tall, lazy-armed Imran Kahn (yes, like the famous cricketer!) was driven through cover and would have been four on any ground.

It was like I’d never stopped playing.

I got bowled by the right-arm weird bowler. He was tossing everything up, and being a former baseballer, I was determined to slog him to all corners. But my timing was invariably not great.

My old technical flaws were still there: getting caught on the crease and not lining up. But all-in-all, it was certainly the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

After my 3 hour 10 minute journey home I watched some highlights of the United vs City game on the net. Sir Alex said it was the “best derby of all time” and I missed it.

But I didn’t even care. I’m sure it was worth it.