I must have played a thousand games of cricket but I remember few of them. What I do remember is the people I played with.
At my first village club there was a man known as Fatty. At heart Fatty was slender but years of beer had furnished him with a colossal gut.
The rumour was that Fatty had once been an opening batsman. It may or may not have been true, but batting no longer interested him. Only three things did: snoozing, drinking beer and bowling slow left arm round that colossal gut. He was good at all three.
The club played only afternoon friendlies. League cricket was available in town, but here it was just Saturday afternoon starting at 2.30 and finishing when one team won or it got dark. The cricket was of a fair standard but nobody worried about it. Sledging was unheard of.
Fatty expected his captain to win the toss and bat so that he could sleep off his lunch in a deckchair. Around 5pm he’d rouse himself for a cup of tea and be ready to field.
By field I mean stand. When the bowling was from the War Memorial end Fatty stood at third man, and when it was from the tennis court end he stood at long on. If the batsman hit the ball within a yard of where he was standing Fatty would trap it with his boot, then lob it in underarm. If it was more than a yard away he let it go for four. The only running Fatty ever did was his bowling run-up. He took two strides.
He bowled from the War Memorial end and he took a hundred wickets a season. But he never knew his bowling figures or took any interest in his tally. What he loved was seducing batsmen.
Whether the score was 20 for 6 or 120 for none, he put men on the boundary. For Fatty they were the equivalent of slips, because he was a tempter. He bowled slow and slower still. Every delivery was bait. He simply wanted the batsman to try to hit a six. He played on ambition and greed. His particular joy was bowling to blockers, those Scrooge-like characters for whom risk is a four letter word. Fatty sought to corrupt them, to make them go against their own miserly natures. He wanted them to slog. And when they did his day was made.
If the slog went for six he applauded. If it was caught on the fence he commiserated. Either way he felt he’d won and the beer tasted good that evening. I think he was fighting a war against puritanism.
I’ve played with a thousand better cricketers than Fatty but there are few I remember so vividly. If he’s still alive he must be eighty now. I raise a glass of words to him now.