C is for CRICKET

Two of my uncles were the first real live cricketers whom I knew in the flesh. They were both avid sportsmen, playing hockey and rugby during the winter and swapping their sticks and studs for willow in the warmer months. When I visited my grandparents in Belfast, there was always a little umbrella stand sitting in the hallway that a collection of sticks and bats and usually a few cricket and hockey balls as well. Sometimes we would go out on to the long lawn at the front of the house and have a couple of overs but most of the holidays, my uncles were at work so it was a case of bowling and batting to yourself and make up the rest in your imagination.

At home, we had no such luxuries as a real cricket bat, but we did manage to get hold of a large piece of wood about the thickness and length of the real thing and after a bit of careful sawing, produced a home made bat that did the job adequately, though the occasional splinter from the handle end was much more painful than any bouncer that could be delivered. We set up one wicket at the pebble dashed gable end of the house and this amounted to an old apple box turned on its end with three boards facing the bowler to represent the three stumps and less than the regulation twenty two yards away, placed another apple box at a convenient line break in the concrete. Dad bowled with all the venom of a West Indian Lance Gibbs at the height of his power and sometimes it was difficult as a twelve year old to last a whole over before he was put in to bat. And we had some simple rules to make the game more interesting. First, and I'm sure dad made this one up. you were only allowed to hit the ball back in the direction of the bowler. Also if the ball rolled down to touch one of the sheds it was counted as four but if it hit a shed without bouncing it was a six. Also if the ball came off your bat on to the gable wall behind it was counted as a catch by the wicket keeper. The most annoying thing about the game was that the rule about hitting the ball back towards the bowler didn't apply when dad was batting and also, regularly, he launched an impressive strike for a six which soared over the top of the sheds and into the paddock behind that was packed full of four foot high nettles. Many a tennis ball we lost for some time during the playing season, only retrieving them after the winter had taken away the sting of the weeds. When dad wasn't there, I would turn the apple box around to face the wall, throw the ball at gable and hit it on the rebound. This was fine except the ball never came back with the same speed and often the uneven dash of the wall meant it often returned to any place except towards the wicket, but it did the job. And to practise the bowling I would often set other obstacles, such as an old bucket, in front of the wicket and place the bat in it just to make it more interesting. In this way, I won many test matches as Jon Snow, Derek Underwood, Geoff Boycott or John Edrich.


When I eventually got to play the real thing in school, it was a whole different experience, for the ball hurt and the feeling of willow against this hard sphere was very different to the impact a tennis ball made. Still, I chose to play it for a few years since the alternative was athletics and my short legs had already decided my fate in that area. So on many Wednesday afternoons, I trundled down to the nets or up to the crease and endured a couple of hours with a group of guys who essentially didn't play any sport and for which cricket was the least of all evils and certainly the least strenuous, while almost all my mates from the rugby team were running, jumping or throwing down on the main pitch. At one stage I got so fed up with it that I chose tennis for a summer term, but generally, it was the comradeship which I missed more than anything.


No, cricket was never going to be my thing and although I dabbled in it from time to time and still enjoy watching the game, especially the one day stuff, and take slightly more than a passive interest in the test series, I suppose it's not at the top of my sporting list anymore. There was a time when I knew every English, West Indian, Pakistan, Indian, Australian and New Zealand player and followed almost every county in England during the summer. Now I couldn't even name half of the present England team, but sometimes I don't think that's too different to the selectors anyway!


In order to preach the gospel of cricket to the unconverted, those who make decisions on such things have tried to make it more interesting, with World Cups, limited over games, one day matches, floodlit pitches and white balls, cameras in the stumps and coloured skips instead of the regulation whites but two things they haven't tampered with are the basic rules of the game and also that the object is to get your opponent out. I think therein lies a lesson to all of us who would profess to follow Jesus and His teachings as the basis for our faith. Ever since He walked on earth the way to heaven has not changed. Yes we can dress up the presentation, use new worship songs or drama and try to make a more attractive package for those still unconverted but at the end of the day, when everything is stripped away, there is still only one way back to God and that is through His Son. He said, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' And when we make that decision to follow Him, Satan constantly tries to catch us out for that is His whole reason for being, to dishonour God and to take us away from Him.


There are many ways to be out in cricket and similarly Satan has many plans to get us out of God's grasp. How refreshing to know that Jesus says ' I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no-one can snatch them out of my hand.' But that will never stop Satan trying, so remember, the next time you hit him for six, there'll be another test just around the corner!