The Gods Of The Game

There’s not a lot going on this morning to be honest. We’re all waiting for today’s T20 to begin. So in the meantime he’s a a bit of light entertainment from Phil Ryan, who seems to have gone all Shakespearean on us …

Bat. Check.

White floppy sun hat. Check.

Don’t upset the cricket Gods. Check! Check!! Check!!!

This was my 1980’s checklist when I went to play cricket. Although some might think my hat was the vital item on this list they’re gravely mistaken. It was very much the Gods thing.

‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods. They kill us for their sport.’ – Ricky Ponting. Edgbaston. 2005.

I jest, of course. It was our very own WG* who supplied such a memorable quote, while coming in off his long run from the King Lear end. But Punter may well have considered those lines, Shakespearian scholar that he undoubtedly is, while sitting in agony, on the balcony, as victory was snatched away at the last.

Poor Ponting discovered the old mantra: win the toss, do the wrong thing, and you annoy the cricketing Gods. Then you won’t win another toss for another four tests … and lose a historic series.

Ricky is not alone.

‘Ha, l like not that!’   No, not Graham Taylor circa 1992. These words were uttered, under breath, by anyone witnessing our very own skipper inserting the Aussies at the Oval last year. You know, the Oval where it’s customary to win the toss, bat, and win the game. As punishment, poor Ali didn’t win another toss until he reached South Africa many moons later.

But Punter and Chef aren’t the only captains to anger the cricketing Gods. Nasser  famously  won  the toss at  the Gabba, inserted Australia and watched helplessly from mid on as they scored 364 for 2 on day one. How the Gods must have laughed as Nas learnt his lesson the embarrassing way. His punishment was to win the toss again at Adelaide, bat this time, but still lose the game.

But it’s not just the toss that enrages the cricketing Gods. One must be on one’s best behaviour at all times. Take Al’s remarkable run of avoiding run outs. 3000 innings, man and choir boy, and his only run out was from vespers after hitting a bum note during a carol service. Cook’s judgement of a run, unlike that of an Oval pitch, was beyond reproach.

Having inherited the role of captain he scored run after run, century after century. He flogged bowlers mercilessly until one grave day, AC jumped out of the way of that little round hard thing, (the ball, not D Boon) and discovered for the first time what it felt like to be short of one’s ground. Thereafter he couldn’t buy a run for eternity as the Gods picked him up, tossed him about and cruelly bent his inner core of steel, origami like, into a swan.

Oh my G ….. sorry. I mustn’t take their names in vain.

How about a more recent example? Eoin Morgan is a talented man but the second he mentioned Kevin Pietersen the other day I sensed that fate had been tempted. I just knew, there and then, England would lose the series, Morgs would score nothing, and the players would collapse in a sorry heap. Perhaps my intuition was to blame? What curse or devilment had I incurred?

As the clock ticks round towards midnight, as the wind beats against my window with a ghoulish cry, as the wolves in the nearby woods howl in a blood thirsty fashion, as my candle flickers and dies, I only hope the Gods start smiling once more on Waitrose’s finest.

Can you, wise blog readers, remind me of other examples?

Phil Ryan

*My research has uncovered that William Shakespeare was only known as WG to his cricketing friends, of which, in the late 1500’s, there were few.