Almanac (Cricket) Humour: Viv on fine leg and third man

 

 

 

 

 

(Viv Tufnell is a Tasmanian Shield cricketer in an alternate universe. He lies, makes excuses and plods at a 28.3 strike rate, while all the while busying himself in the art of being an a@#*hole.)

 

(In today’s journal, Viv’s drab grafting cops a blowtorch (and if you’re new to Viv’s world, his typical batting wagon wheel consists of little more than two thick spokes behind the wicket!)

 

Sometimes you just have to suck it up.

 

As you well know, I’m a slipper, and if I say so myself, the best 4th slip on the shield circuit. The thing about specializing as 4^th slip, though, is you seldom get a chance to spread your wings. If it’s overcast and there’s swing, you’ll get a dozen overs there. If there’s been early wickets and ‘plays and misses’, you might even get a whole session. But on the whole, 4^th slip usually only plays a cameo, before being banished to extra cover or square leg or – should it be Glenn Maxwell on strike – extra fine flyslip/shortish longstop.

 

Of all the positions I’m relegated to, fine leg is one of the most unlikely, but I found myself there today when Chris Koo went down with a hammy. Fine leg and 3^rd man are, of course, usually the exclusive domain of strapping pace bowlers, but if one of them gets injured, us batsmen can end up fielding there. Or should I say, can end up languishing there.

 

 And so it was the case that I languished there today, and not just because I suffered a grueling arvo of hard sprints, desperate dives and strained throws, but also because it put me within earshot of two of the most toxic vermin ever to have attended a SCG shield game.

 

“Tuffers, ya fat t*rd,” heckled one of the yobs. “Fine leg, today? Getting some of your own medicine!”

 

“Yeah,” expanded his mate. “‘Bout time you saw how the other half live – your grafting makes their lives a living hell!”

 

The yob who called me a fat t*rd had a baritone that was more ocker than the AFL’s Jonathan Brown. His mate, however, had a whiny timbre not unlike Crikey agitator, Steven Mayne. Perversely, the ocker was on the malnourished side of skinny, while his whiny mate had muscles on his muscles. It was as though nature had confused who gets which voice!

 

“Tuffers, I hear fine leg gets a tonnage allowance whenever you’re batting.”

 

“Yeah, 3^rd man too – they make enough to buy a Lexus whenever you snick out a ton!”

 

Already I saw a pattern with these two. The ocker would spew up his toxins and his whiny mate would expand on ‘em. Not that I could hurl that back at them. When you’re fielding in the deep you have to bite your lip. To do otherwise is playing with fire.

 

“No comeback, Viv? Cat got your tounge?”

 

“Yeah, biting your lip? Or so you’re making out. Truth is, getting wit out of you is as likely as you middling one!”

 

A ball was deflected 30 yards to my left and I had to make a mad dash to cut it off from the rope.

 

“Go Tuffers, bust a gut.”

 

“Yeah, wakey-wakey. Haul that big rig!”

 

To my chagrin, I didn’t get there in time.

 

“Gee that must kill ya? Not cutting that off.”

 

“Yeah, seeing most of the shit that trickles off your bat does!”

 

I’d just about had enough of these bastards.

 

“So Viv, you really must have a hang up about fine leg? To get so many glances so close to the rope, only for ‘em to be intercepted time and again … that’s gotta give you a complex.”

 

 “Yeah, you must feel like a weed that’s about to flower. Just as the bud is about to breakthrough, tsssssst, it’s sprayed with herbicide!”

 

The jibes kept coming and it was taking every last skerrick of my determination to keep ignoring them, but then a skied ball came my way, which had me backward peddling, and just as I was about to snaffle it, I felt the rope under my heels. I jerked forward and in doing so, lost my balance, and as you’d expect, made a hash of the catch. Worse still, the ball trampolined off my outstretched hands and not only cleared the rope but also the fence, landing a few rows before the yobs.

 

“Oh Tuffers! That was Nureyev like!”

 

“Yeah, ‘cept the bulge wasn’t round your crotch, it was round your love handles!”

 

I picked myself off the turf and turned to face the a@$*holes, waiting for one of them to return the kookaburra. As I did, it struck me that I now had a window to engage with them. If I’d done so earlier, it would have appeared as though my professionalism was in question. But now they were technically in the game, albeit in a fetching role like tennis’s ‘ball boys’ (and gee did I enjoy having that image of them!)

 

The whiny bloke was the one who retrieved the ball and as he shaped to throw it, I spat, “Hey, it’s all ‘yeah this’ and ‘yeah that’ with you; why the don’t you come up with your own sh*t?!”

 

He threw me the ball. “Okay, how about this? What’s it’s like being an easy to bait, thin skinned f#*k?”

 

“Yeah,” expanded the ocker, now fired up too, “what’s it like being an ‘easy-to-throw-off-your-game’, fatchops [censored]?”

 

I threw the ball back to the keeper and for the love of f@#*, it was a particularly shoddy return, bouncing several times and almost grubbing.

 

“And how about this? What’s it like having a sissy arsed throwing arm. Or this? What’s it like watching your throws peter out like a limply chucked t*rd?

 

“Yeah”, backed up the Ocker. “Yeah!”

 

And so I smiled to myself that I should have known better, and especially so in the next over when our spinner came on and I was positioned to convert from fine leg into long off, but now a few yards closer to the fence.

 

“No escaping us now Tuffers! Fine leg rotating as Long off. We could have you for the rest of the session!”

 

And so they did. And so they did.

 

 

More from Punxsutawney Pete can be read Here.

 

 

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