A FOUL GAME.
It is Christmas, and here is a nice little cricket story for the hearth. The funny thing about it is that it is true. And the other funny thing about it is that it was told to me by a huge Rugger Blue called Eric. (I understand people can change their names at Confirmation. Why don't they?)
It was in a College match—not, I gather, a particularly serious one. Eric and his friend Charles were playing for Balbus College against Caramel College. Caramel had an "A" team out, and Balbus, I should think, must have had about a "K" team ... anyhow, Eric and Charles were both playing. Eric, as he modestly said, doesn't bat much, and Charles doesn't bowl much. Eric said to Charles, "I bet you a fiver you won't get six wickets." Charles said to Eric, "All right; and I bet you a fiver you won't get a hundred runs."
Then began a hideous series of intrigues. Caramel were to bat first, and Eric went to the Balbus captain and said, "There's a sovereign* for you if Charles doesn't go on to bowl at all."
* This is a pre-war story.
"Very well," said the captain, with a glance of sinister understanding. "Wouldn't have anyhow," he added as he pocketed the stake.
Then Charles arrived.
"Two pounds," said the captain.
"What for?" said Charles.
"For ten overs—four bob an over."
"It's too much," said Charles; "but there's a sovereign for you if Eric goes in ninth wicket down."
"Very well," said the captain, with a glance of devilish cunning. "It's only one lower than usual. Thank you."
Acting on intuition and their knowledge of the captain, Eric and Charles then hotly accused each other of bribery. Both confessed, and it was agreed to start fair. Charles was to bowl first change and Eric was to bat first wicket. The captain said he would want a lot of bribing to go back on the original arrangement, especially if it meant Charles bowling, but he would do it for the original price; and, as he already held the money, Eric and Charles had to concede the point.
By the way, I am afraid the captain doesn't come very well out of this, and I'm afraid it is rather an immoral story; but my object is to show up the evils of commercialism, so it is all right.
Pallas Athene came down and stood by the bowler's umpire while Charles was bowling, and he got five wickets quite easily. It was incredible. The Caramel batsmen seemed to be paralysed. Then the last man came in, and the first thing he did was to send up a nice little dolly catch to Eric at cover-point. Eric missed it. When I say he missed it I mean he practically flung it on the ground. Indeed he rather over-did it, and the batsman, who was a sportsman and knew Charles, appealed to the umpire to say he was really out. Pallas Athene grabbed the umpire by the throat, and he said firmly that no catch had been made.
Then the batsmen made a muddle about a run and found themselves in the common but embarrassing position of being both at the wicket-keeper's end. The ball had gone to Eric and he had only to throw it in to Charles, who was bowling, for Charles to put the wicket down. But in one of those flashes of inspiration which betray true genius he realised that in the circumstances that was just what Charles would not do. Direct action was the only thing. So, ball in hand, he started at high velocity towards the wicket himself.
He was a Rugger Blue (I told you) and a three-quarter at that, so he went fairly fast. However, the batsman saw that he had a faint hope after all, and he ran too. It was an heroic race, but the batsman had less distance to go. Eric saw that he was losing, and from a few yards' range he madly flung the ball at the wicket. He missed the wicket, but he hit Charles very hard on the shin, which was something. I fancy he must have hit Pallas Athene as well, for with the very next ball she gave Charles his sixth wicket.
By this time the game had resolved itself into an Homeric combat between the two protagonists, of which the main bodies of the Balbus and Caramel armies were merely neutral spectators—neutral, that is, so far as they had not been hired out for some dastard service by one or other of the duellists.
When Eric went in it was clear that Juno had come down to help him, for he made three runs in eight balls without being bowled once. Then Charles came in. His first ball he hit slowly between mid-off and cover, and he called for a run. All unsuspecting, Eric cantered down the pitch. When he was half-way Charles seemed to be seized with the sort of panic which sometimes possesses a batsman. "No, no!" he cried. "Go back! go back!" And he scuttled back himself. Juno fortunately intervened and Eric just got home in time. But he realised now what he was up against. His next ball he hit towards mid-wicket, and shouting "Come on!" he galloped up the pitch. Charles came on gingerly, expecting to be sent back, but Eric duly passed him; he then turned round and just raced Charles back to the wicket-keeper's end. Charles was only a Soccer Blue (and a goal-keeper at that), and Eric won.
"After that," said Eric with his usual modesty, "it was easy." Eyewitnesses, however, have told me more. Juno dealt with the Caramel bowlers, but Eric had to compete with Charles. And Charles resorted to every kind of devilish expedient. Nearly all the Balbus batsmen were bribed to run Eric out, and whenever he hit a boundary Eric had to stop and reason with them in the middle of the pitch. Sometimes he tried to outbid Charles, but he usually found that he couldn't afford it. So he collared the bowling as much as possible and tried not to hit anything but boundaries. Juno helped him a good bit in that way.
When he had made seventy he got a ball on the knee. Charles ran out and offered to run for him, but Eric said he could manage, thank you. Then Charles went and walked rapidly up and down in front of the screen; but Eric wasn't the sort of batsman who minded that.
At about ninety, Eric's knee was pretty bad, so he called out for somebody to run for him—not Charles. Five of Charles's hirelings rushed out of the pavilion, but the captain said he would go himself, as that wasn't fair. Besides, he had money on Eric himself.
At this point I gather that Pallas Athene must have deserted Charles altogether, for he seems to have entertained for a moment or two the ignoble notion of tampering with the scorer. I am glad to be able to say that even the members of the Balbus College "K." Team, eaten up as they were by this time with commercialism, declined to be parties to that particular wickedness. With every circumstance of popular excitement Eric's hundredth run—a mis-cue through the slips—was finally made, scored and added up. In fact, he carried his bat.
"So you were all square," I said, not without admiration.
"By no means," said Eric. "It cost me forty shillings."
"And Charles?"
"It cost him seven pounds."
A. P. H.