Almanac (Fictional) Cricket: Viv on run outs

 

 

 

 

(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 this installment, Viv shares his frustrations over trying to square up run outs.)

 

You know, I’ve been a victim of some of the most shambolic ‘Yes-no-waits’ you could suffer in a run out, and as you’d well expect from someone like me, I’ve been plotting square ups for every one of them: every last one of them.

 

The bitch is, squaring up a run out is as difficult as executing the perfect crime; or so it’s proved in my experience.

 

I mean, it’s a tricky business manufacturing a bad call. Believe me, I’ve tried. Every time I have, I’ve come out looking like Dick Dastardly from the Wacky Races; and especially so when I’ve called ‘Yes-no-wait’s’ on what should have been emphatic “NOs!”

 

One time I called “Yes-no-wait” on what should have been, “NO WAY, NO; STAY IN YOUR EFFING CREASE, NO. SHIT, THE FIELDER’S ALREADY SHAPING TO THROW AND THE KEEPER’S ALREADY OVER THE STUMPS AND THE UMPIRE’S ALREADY HALF RAISED HIS FINGER; SO JESUS, DANGER THE F@#* WILL ROBINSON, NO!!”

 

Now, as you can well imagine, that call was hard to explain as an innocent mix up; and even if my partner had been the unsuspecting type. As it was Glenorchy’s psycho Sid, and in that he threatened to smash me if he ever had another inkling that I was trying to run him out, I figured, for the preservation of my ass, I might just need to go back to the drawing board.

 

What’s more, as in that case, every one of my bogus ‘Yes-no-waits’ failed. My partners always managed to scramble back to the crease just in time and to add insult to injury, for the rest of those innings, they deemed my calls as trustworthy as the Manosphere. Shit, I can’t tell you how many cheeky singles that went on to cost me over the years.

 

So, as I said, manufacturing bad calls hasn’t worked out for me, and I resolved that I needed to come up with something else. And at one point I thought I had. It was a scheme to leave my partner stranded after a dropped catch, and when I first came up with it, I thought, This thing …this thing is a thing of grandeur.

 

The idea was when they’ve skied one and they’re running aimlessly towards your end, you stay put. If the catch goes down, and once they’ve scrambled into your crease, you look at them with an expression which says, ‘Oh shit … I thought you were as good as out? It never occurred to me to run?’ You’d follow up this by expressing an insincere ‘Sos’ as the keeper then took off the bails.

 

The beauty with this ploy (or so I thought!) is that there usually isn’t a call. Batsmen who sky the ball tend to assume that it’s a given that you’ll make a cursory attempt to make it to the other end in the unlikelihood of the catch going down. They’re usually in a malaise over making the false shot and are oblivious to your reactions. This in my calculations gave me a watertight ‘out’ should the catch be spilled and the run out be realized. I could say, “Look man, I’m sorry, okay, but you didn’t call; um, let’s work on this in our drills, yeah?” I’d then add smirking, “And don’t worry, mate, they’ll be plenty more 99s that you’ll turn into 100s, just you wait and see.”

 

Now I’ve executed this perfectly over a half a dozen times in all my years and every time I’ve been thwarted by the same thing: the catch has been taken! (And shit, did I even need to tell you that?)

 

More frustrating is that every other part of the plan worked just as I pictured. After my teammates skied the ball, they ran aimlessly towards my end without calling, and just as the catch was taken, they crossed over into my crease. Had they been dropped, my face was ready to express:

 

Shit Dave, you didn’t call? Um, I don’t know what to say? And if you’ve got a feeling that there’s just a hint of smugness in my expression, well, maybe there is?; but yes, you’re right, I’ve disguised it so well, you can’t really tell. And if you’re also thinking this is a square up for that time you left me high and dry on that Bellerive belter eight seasons ago, maybe it is too? That’s right Dave, maybe I don’t enjoy being run out for zip when all you c@*ts are making hundreds. Anyway, hoped this ruined your day. See ya!

 

Or

 

Shit mum, you didn’t call? Um, I don’t know what to say? And yes, this might very well be a square up for the time you ran me out in Uncle Kev’s back yard. And sure, it was just a scratch game at a barbie, and sure squaring up for that in a game of beach cricket might seem like a shitty thing to do, but it’s the principal of the thing, okay. And if you’re also thinking part of this is a square up for not getting me a new Duncan Fearnley on my 13th birthday, well yes, maybe it is too? As it may well be for making me eat all that broccoli as a kid. Anyway, there it is mum, I finally squared up with you, and no I’m not fazed by you thinking it’s a pathetic thing for a 28 year old to do.

 

Or

 

Shit mate, you didn’t call? Um, I don’t know what to say? And even though you can’t read this expression because you’re blind, I’m gonna persevere with it. I figure if I’m gonna sacrifice my time to play with a bunch of amateurs in a charity game of blind cricket, I may as well get something out of it. But if you weren’t blind you’d see that I’m disguising my smugness expertly and that you’d never have guessed I’d set you up for a run out. Anyway, thanks for helping me out with road testing my ploy, and if it’s any consolation, I’ll see you later in the nets, where we’ll get to work on keeping your agricultural swipes to cow corner from being skied to mid on (and how you ever managed to sky a grubbing ball I’ll never know?)

 

So there it is, I had all this ready to express had the catches been dropped – and damn, I reckon I would have given Nurse Ratched a good run for her money in the smugness stakes, too. Bloody shame alright. Still, it wasn’t a total loss. After all, I did manage to trip up one of the other blind batsmen when we crossed paths on a quick single. Now that ploy worked perfectly … he was run out before he’d even picked himself up (and boy, am I now working on that one feverishly in the lab, in the hope of one day deploying it at Bellerive!)

 

More from Punxsutawney Pete can be read Here.

 

 

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