Dot Ball.

Cricket is my first love. As early as I can remember, it was part of my life. The 1992 World Cup was the big one: waking up before sunrise in South Africa to watch with my brother and my dad. 

I cared. Enough to make a banner, and enough to make a tit of myself walking into school singing, “Hansie is my hero, he shall not be moved.”

Turns out he can be moved. Mountains can’t.

Australia turns out to be a good place for a cricket fan too. People love it here and love to talk about it. 

Nearly every park has a set of nets, and there are always kids in them. Our first home was close enough to the Justin Langer Oval in Scarborough that the appealing fielders ruined my midday naps.

My dad put an enormous amount into my brother and me. Net sessions. Throw-downs. He coached our Saturday cricket. I never once wondered what else he could have been doing with those Saturdays. Never cared. I was too busy scoring runs like it was my job. 

My gran, Dot, loved it more than any of us. She’d sit and knit all day while we played. In high school, fifty-over games were a Saturday fixture, and she’d just sit. And knit. And I was shit.

Some context: my gran pretty much took care of us after my mother left for her cancer holiday. And my gran wasn’t my father’s mother and couldn’t drive. My father was supporting the cricket addiction of his mother-in-law too. There’s lots to unpack. 

Objectively, I got shitter from the age of thirteen. I walked into high school a provincial player, fairly confident I’d be hero-welcomed, only to be selected for the C team. 

They both arrived every Wednesday and Saturday and watched. 

He’d stand and wave his hands at me when I batted, telling me to calm down. I didn’t listen. I batted like a sword fighter. 

My dad said I played cricket with a rugby brain. I hated that. 

He wasn’t wrong. 

She’d sit and knit. 

A widower and his late wife’s mother gave me every Wednesday and Saturday. 

I’ve done the sums.

A season of Saturday cricket is eight hours a week, plus nets, plus washing whites that never come clean, plus some sunscreen I’d never apply, the bags, the snacks and the standing around. THE PRICE OF KIT! 

Have you seen what a decent bat costs? A GM Diamond would cost you the same as a VW ID Buzz in today’s economy. 

I love my kids. I also love my Saturdays. I am not a man who can sit and knit.

I won’t give the same Saturdays to my kids that my father gave me. I feel guilty. Not that guilty. 

Last night my son sat next to me to watch the fourth day of the second Test. He’s four, with a stronger accent than any of the Waugh brothers.

“Dad, who do I cheer for?”

I thought about the banner. I thought about Hansie, and my dad on the couch in 1992. I thought about the silence at boarding school after that run out in 1999. Then I looked at the boy and said, “Whoever’s dominating.”

He nodded. 

He’s watching me watch. Screaming when Jansen took one of his five. Taking it all in, building his own passion. 

Maybe that’s what Saturdays were always for.

I’ll think about it at my son’s first cricket practice ever.

On Friday night.