A friend says living in Tasmania makes you so isolated they may as well live in New Zealand or Denmark.
For all that, George Bailey is pretty much straight up and down. Well almost. He comes from Launceston and walks with a slight stoop. It is nothing untoward. His teacher said he always walked in thought.
He loves playing cricket; cricket is his thing. His great great grandfather George Herbert Bailey toured with the Australian side in 1878 so cricket runs in the genes.
And the Australian shirt, just like captaincy, sits easily on his shoulders, win or lose, as on any of the other captains in his World Cup team.
His first international game in T20 was as captain – one of only two Australians to have done so. His leadership of the ODI side is due to injury to captain Clarke.
Captaincy is his career. In a self-mocking way he says he is blessed to be surrounded by captains. Anyone who has been so completely surrounded for so long, or suffers from enochlophobia, understands this sentiment.
There are more serving captains on the field than off it. Not that he cares so much. For him, shorting a captain (or three) is preferable to being short a bowler or a batsman when you need one.
Captains are a dime a dozen whereas trustworthy run machines or wicket takers are as rare as a ha’penny bit. George averages 44.5 in the 50-over game.
Does he get frustrated or annoyed? No one has ever heard him use those words. The way he sees it he has little influence over what players do. He can set the field and choose who to bowl.
After that, everything is out of his hands. He is as much surprised by events as a bucket-headed spectator beyond the pickets in the stands, or the coach in the players rooms.
There is no room for frustration or annoyance.
The way he figures it, any minute spent ruminating existentially on an event just gone (which might be doubted, for a man like him spends his time reading Sartre or talking to people), is time wasted.
What is done cannot be undone. The present is everything. There is simply no time for anything else. This explains his easy banter with the media. He is happy to answer any question at any time about match tactics because the answer is redundant as soon as it is uttered.
Yet he is modest. Sure, he might forfeit his position in the team for captain Clarke at the appointed time, or at any other time. Others will make that decision. George understands how the politics of cricket is played. He prefers to play it risk free, in the middle, in his own understated way.
He thinks sledging is pointless as a tactic and mostly witless, a view not held by everyone. George would prefer to be doing something more productive, for example encouraging stump to stump bowling.
The late mail says Pup won’t make it back. Sure, Pup played a grade game on a local oval in Chatswood, Sydney – let’s call it an ‘exhibition game’ – in gentle autum conditions. He took three hours to score 50 and then finished it off with a media interview saying how good he felt.
Why didn’t he just text coach Lehmann and tell him? Maybe no one wants to know, except the burger flippers on Channel Nine who love him and are telling everyone he will be back. Who knows.
Anyway, George won’t be sweating on it. It’s nothing he can control. He would rather play cricket.
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