It’s the last week of Spring 1986. Mum, Dad, my brother and I are at the Northern Tasmanian Cricket Association (NTCA) indoor wickets. Training has finished for the evening, and I’m putting the cricket gear I share with my brother in the new cricket bag I received for my birthday just days ago. Mum and Dad are in deep conversation with the Coach. I shake my head knowing the outcome of this conversation is not going to be positive. Nothing is said as we leave the complex and head back to the car for the 45 minute drive to George Town. Mum and Dad have dedicated every Monday evening for the passed two months to entertain my interest in playing club cricket in Launceston, as there is no club in my home town.

“What happened Paul?”, Dad asks sternly.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about”, I offer trying to deflect from all the evidence that suggests I called my coach a ‘dickhead’.

“Who? You’re coach?”, Mum replies.

“He’s played Shield cricket for Tasmania Paul. I think he knows what he is talking about when in comes to junior cricket”, Dad joins in.

“Um, no not that. Forget it. He wasn’t being fair”, I offer with more than a hint of verbal passionate snot.

“Not what I heard”, Mum scorns. “Your coach was very clear, you were rude and he doesn’t accept behaviour like that. It’s just not on Paul”.

There is a long silence as I watch the sun set and the emerging street lights blur by from the back seat of the car. I learned a long while before that I don’t argue back when it appears my parents have their minds set.

My brother, two years my senior, joins the fray, “There was a bit more too it, to be fair”.

My parents turn their heads to the centre of the car in unison. “What’s that?”

“He was asked to go and bat in the under 15s nets, and he couldn’t, um, I mean, I had the helmet, and, um, there was no other equipment”,  my brother stumbles in my defence.

“Paul?”, Mum invites my contribution.

I exaggerate a deep breathe out and clear my throat. “I wasn’t ready. I dunno. They’re taller, and bigger, and faster, and I didn’t want to face them without a helmet and thigh pad and stuff. He pushed me to got bat against them. I’m only under 13s. I wasn’t ready”.

“Still no excuse to be rude!”, Mum concludes.

Car court is over. The witness is dismissed, and so are my chances of playing competition cricket for a week in the school holiday. True to their word my parents metered out the punishment for me being rude to an elder. My name appeared in the team list for the new year competition, but Mum phoned the coach and both my brother and I are withdrawn from the games. The family goes fishing to the lakes for our traditional summer break, and the closest thing to cricket I get that summer is listening the Test and One Day games on the crackly radio.

Coincidently, a kid, my age, that did get to play that summer competition in Launceston in January 1987 was, Mowbray’s Ricky Ponting. His batting was the source of media reports each day of the competition, and cricket sponsors lined up not long after to back this childhood star. He was identified as a future cricket champion, and he lived up to every bit of that hype.

Postscript

Five years later I’m at the end of Year 11 and exploring my subject choices for Year 12. I spot the ‘Talented Athlete Program’ (TAP) in the subject guide and nominate for the Launceston College Cricket team. I had absolutely no idea that there was a ‘try out’ some weeks before and it was competitive entry, and clearly neither did the teacher who enrolled me. I turned up the following February to the first TAP class and was asked by my peers if I could even play cricket. The team was made up of students who had played club cricket for various teams in Launceston for years. I nodded in the positive and jumped into it.

Although I had never played competitive club cricket I filled my spare time over the previous five summers playing in the backyard with friends for hundreds of hours. In addition, I had played for hours against a wall by myself. This meant my hand eye coordination was good. It also meant I had not received any coaching or feedback to get better and correct baked-in form errors. Also, I’d never played on grass turf, well, if you exclude the times when we mowed a cricket strip in the park where the George Town Swimming Pool now stands. In reality, my skills were honed on concrete pitches, more often than not with tennis balls wrapped with tape.  I simply didn’t have the experience of my peers. Nevertheless, I dug in that year, I was fit, and I was motivated to play well.

And play well as a team we did. The Launceston College team of 1992 won the Tasmanian leg of the Gillette Cup. This knock out competition included private and public college teams from across Tasmania. I took 4/16 off 10 overs in our final game to support the side and secure our right to represent the state in the National Competition in Canberra in December 1992. We were soundly defeated in all our matches in Canberra.

The teacher/coach of TAP encouraged my development and nudged me to play competitively. I rejoined Launceston Cricket Club that summer and played well together. In fact, we won the Second Grade competition. I was invited to train with the State Under 19 squad that same year, and played one trail game for Tasmania in the Kookaburra Cup against North Hobart. When the Tasmania team for the National Under 19 Championships were announced I did not make it. I thought I was in with a chance, but my skills weren’t at the level of my peers. They had earned their place over years of practice and coaching, and were experienced players, some playing First Grade with their respective clubs. Ricky Ponting was the stand out.

I played cricket for a few years after, but turned my attention to coaching as it aligned perfectly with my study of Physical Education teaching. I secured Level 1 and Level II coaching credentials, and coached the Launceston Cricket Club Under 13s (yep, the same team I had tried out for in 1986), I coached the NTCS Under 15 representative side, and I took a paid position to coach Launceston Church Grammar school cricket (I will write about this experience elsewhere).

I retired from competitive cricket following a series of lower back and hamstring injuries in the mid 1990s. To this day I follow cricket closely. It was my first love as a sport, and I remain a cricket tragic.