With another Ashes series about to commence, it’s natural to reminisce about cricketing triumphs past.
But as much as memories of 1982/83, the Australian winter of 1989 and domination throughout the ’90s pleases me, very little generates the same warmth as remembering those super overs in the family backyard, let alone one particular lofted straight drive over my brother’s head.
The lonesome batsman cautiously adopts his batting stance and squints into the gathering gloom of late evening.
He is concentrating hard. All the batsman can hear is the flap of the bowler’s feet against the ground as he runs towards the lone stump, in syncopated rhythm with the beat of his hopeful heart.
It’s bat against ball. One young man’s desire to hit the wicket and another’s ambition to send the ball across the rough ground to the wire fence.
As my brother leaps into his delivery stride in the style of Geoff Lawson, I crouch dramatically from my knees, emulating my hero, Allan Border.
Down the hill from our house, in the bottom paddock where the gum trees and blackbutts dominate, the Hunt boys are playing cricket again. We have our own pitch, inasmuch as there are three stumps in the ground and a bare patch of earth where the ball might land.
(Photo by Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images)
My boyish eyes spot the ball as it leaves my brother’s hand and heads towards me with malevolent menace.
I take a step towards the ball, but I’m not certain. Perhaps I should have gone back. I attempt a cover drive without conviction. The ball slides past the outside edge of my searching bat and I hear it clang against the cyclone wire gate behind me.
My brother has outplayed me. Again.
I slap my bat against my pad in frustration. Why can’t I hit the ball this evening?
My father stands in the distant darkness. It’s his turn to bowl.
“Play up! Play up! And play the game”, my father yells.
Now he is skipping in towards me – on light feet that belie both his age and the hard day’s work we have spent in the yard – and, in a whirl of arms and legs, sends the ball towards me.
It’s pitched up and, placing my left foot adjacent to where it lands, I hit the ball sweetly towards the large blackbutt tree that serves as a steadfast fieldsman at mid-off.
“Nicely played”, my dad claps his hands encouragingly.
My younger brother trots in and bowls down a gentle delivery and I politely hit the ball back to him.
Now my older brother is ready to sprint in and hurl another one down towards me. He’s discovered that there is an exposed rock shelf on a good length in line with my leg stump. And he’s become awfully good at aiming directly at it.
The ball clips the ragged rock and steeples towards my helmetless head. Thankfully, I am quick enough to get out of the way. I look up and my brother has the glint of conquest in his eyes.
Dad and my younger brother both bowl again before it’s my elder brother’s turn again.
I decide to banish my Allan Border technique and instead mimic Kim Hughes – feet close together with prominent left shoulder raised towards my chin.
As my brother releases the ball, I skip down the pitch, and with a daring swing of the bat, hit the ball over my brother’s head to the wooden fence that runs diagonally behind the bowler’s run-up. My heart sings in time with the melody created by the vibrations running down by forearms.
Meanwhile, my dad dances whilst brother bristles.
These were the super overs.
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