by The ball feels like a stranger in your hand. It’s been, what, five months since you last saw your hand? Are you sure you still can? Those unused muscles in your back and shoulders tighten with anxiety. You know this is going to hurt in the morning.
Slow breathing. You try to remember the good times. You have memories of that five thousand suns from three seasons back. You imagine that jaffa that the laws of nature demanded to arc through the air before you stepped off the deck. You remember the out-of-body sensation the moment you produced something beautiful from your fingertips. The triumphant roar. The patches on the back. The loving smiles from beyond the border.
So you lean your head forward, force your cold limbs to follow, and begin a clunky move toward the belt to deliver your first ball of the new year.
Winter nets fit the dichotomy of cricket perfectly. Right away there is an endless expanse of hope and promise before you. Maybe this is the season when it finally clicks. When your aging torso catches up with the demands of your brain. Where everything works as it should and you go on a magical run that your children will want to hear about. But maybe this training session inside a rented school gym or some soggy field confirms what you’ve long suspected. That your best days are just a speck in the rear view. That your high water mark is now just a stain on the wall. That the call to greatness is a lingering echo of what could have been if this game was taken, and indeed, a little more seriously.
More than anything, it is this launch into the unknown that unites talented professionals and romantic amateurs. Because before the start of that inaugural game in April, we are all, more or less, in the same boat.
“I think it’s a very human thing to carry those two opposite emotions at the same time,” says Middlesex opening bowler Ethan Bamber who, along with three other Lord’s teammates, is a proud product of the North Middlesex Cricket Club . “You’re just trying to control that excitement as well as the nerves. You hope that you can replicate all the good things from the previous year and get rid of the bad situation. It is important to allow yourself to dream. I think we can all relate to that.”
That’s where the link ends. Bamber’s muscles go faster than at least 97% of the 350,000 registered cricketers in more than 5,000 clubs across England and Wales. And this is not a story about those at the highest level, with their state-of-the-art equipment, on-demand physios and curated training camps in Dubai. This is about the rest of us at the bottom of the pyramid. So, in search of common themes linking trailers in Taunton to sloggers in Staithes, I put out a request for some stories. The seven WhatsApp club groups I am a part of provided stories. And while the granular details were different, some through lines emerged.
The classic story is the “gun” new signature. Sometimes from a rival club, often from Australia or South Africa, this toned maverick comes with the promise of runs and a wicket. In winter nets they are like a dream. All blades flash and hands whirl. You can tell they are cut above by the sound the ball makes off the bat or as it goes into the net behind you. Unless you’ve seen this before. As one message read, “Nine times out of 10 they don’t really play or seem like a bit of shit.”
To be fair, it’s much easier to look like a prospect in February and March. You are more likely to be bowling indoors on a surface that is hard and true. This is as close as you will ever get to the lightning fast strip found at the Wanderers or old Waca. But that doesn’t stop you from bending your back and releasing bouncers you couldn’t run on the grass.
Not that anyone is complaining. You are not fast enough to rattle any helmet and your presence is an advantage only to those captains who have begun their six month practice herding cats towards ovals. At least you’re not the type of player who arrives late, arrives and has a short number before spending the rest of the session dealing with side-mouthed comments.
You look around and you find ubiquitous characters: The gruff old man, with a nickname like “The Reverend”, who hasn’t played for 30 years but is still constantly present; the talented young person who is not sure that he will have to find another line of work; the badger with the custom bat and strange technique; the stroke maker from New Zealand; the terrible fast from Pakistan; the Canadians who can barely get the ball down the other end but will be available for every away game.
They all come together for a winter crunch where your back is starting to pinch and your toes are starting to cramp. This has not gone according to plan. You have a bowling pie and a bat with something like a wet fish. Maybe this isn’t your year after all? “Nonsense,” you say to yourself as you make your way to the pub. Until that first game in April, anything is possible.
