CRICKET: 26 OCTOBER 2017

Harry’s trick highlights some excellent sportsmanship

Molong Online received the following letter today from Scott Barrett, who’s just revived his cricket career with a few games for Cudal in the Molong Saturday afternoon competition.

It’s to do with a fine piece of sportsmanship from a young Freemasons’ fast bowler.s

“Let’s be honest, most of us would give anything to get a hat-trick. We all want and need the social capital it gives within the team, and the fuel its adds to the delusional thoughts that we could have actually achieved a lot more in cricket if we hadn’t decided to focus on our careers and family instead of chasing a life as a professional sportsman.

“Contrary to that, there was a display of fantastic sportsmanship in the Cudal v Freemasons cricket game on the weekend worth recognising. The incident involved young quick Harry (Scott apologises if he has the name wrong) Pearce.

“He was bowling heat and proved far too good for myself and a couple of others as Cudal collapsed from 0/70 to be all out for 120-odd. Towards the end of our innings, he took two wickets in consecutive balls to find himself with the opportunity most of us only reach when lying to our friends, wives and girlfriends (or people we would like to fill those positions) about how good we are at cricket.

“There are others among us, well beyond our prime, who might have picked up a hat-trick in juniors and continue to dine out on the three wickets taken to clean up the tail in an under 15s match that no one else on the planet remembers.

“My dreams and former glory aside, striding to the wicket at this stage was one of our younger kids. To be fair, time would tell that this kid was probably a better batsman than some of our senior players, myself included, but he remained all that stood between Harry and a hat-trick he could use to impress girls for years to come.

“Rather than cash in on this opportunity by letting go one of the straight quick balls that had proved the better of several of us beforehand, Harry abandoned his long fluent Malcom Marshallesque run up for a far more friendly loopy spin of some description that was relatively easily defused by our teenage tailender.

“The classy move in possibly turning down this opportunity earned Harry the praise of several of the Cudal players. He also managed to pick up some pretty envy-worthy bowling figures and a handy few runs as well.

“Well done to Harry and well done to Freemasons, who look to be a good side enjoying their cricket.”