From: sidi@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Sadiq Yusuf)
Subject: BOOK EXTRACT - A Bloody Drongo 
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Distribution: rec.sport.cricket
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 03:34:56 GMT


Hi all,
	Well, things have quietened down a bit, and the traffic is down
(not that Iam complaining !), so I thought I might as well scan and post a
Book Extract.
	Australia had an unexpectedly poor showing in this World Cup, Iam
sure there is quite a bit of soul-searching going on among the Australian
cricketing authorities. Maybe the following extract will shed some light on
the reasons behind Australia's poor performance (though it's from an
article entitled "The Cyclical Supremacy of Australia in World Cricket"!).
On the other hand, it may not, and may be nothing more than an author's
memories of his younger days in Australia. Either way, I enjoyed it, let me
know  what you think !! 
	This extract is taken from "The Faber Book of Cricket", edited by
Michael and Simon Davie (highly recommended, I think it's terrific !) The
book is a collection of cricketing stuff from all over, some on
personalities, some stuff on great matches, and other stuff of general
interest. It's basically extracts from other sources. (some of you might
remember my post of the Ashes test of 1902, "A great test match". That was
from the same book). Anyway, the Faber book has taken this extract from the
article mentioned above, from the book "Summer Days" printed in 1981 and
written by the Australian author Thomas Keneally.   

	{ Responsibility for any mis-scans is mine of course, and am sorry
about the funny indentations where the pages end, and the next page has
bigger margins. Scanning didn't quite work out perfectly !}

		Sadiq [ Scan on(tap,tap), scan off(tap,tap),
			scan on,scan off... The Scanner  ]   Yusuf




        		   A Bloody Drongo                                                  

We may be a small and callow race but there is a divinity to 
our cricket. There are profound social and cultural reasons 
for it. As late as the 1950's, the curriculum in Australian 
schools was identical to that of an English grammar school. 
Poetry cut out at Tennyson. The only history was European 
history. When we spoke of literary figures, we spoke of
Englishmen. But when we spoke of cricket, we spoke of our
own. We couldn't make it in literature because we had none
of the right seasons, the plants laughed at European botany,
the absurd animals had no mythology behind them. But
cricket was possible! We knew why it was. We had more
sunshine, we ate more protein, we washed more regularly
than the Poms! In the manner in which soccer is the great
way up for children from the economic sumps of Brazil, so
cricket was the great way out of Australian cultural igno-
miny. No Australian had written Paradise Lost, but Brad-
man had made 100 before lunch at Lord's.

About the age of ten, therefore, I had my cultural aspira-
tions irretrievably tangled with my lust to be opening bats-
man for Australia. At that stage I played a game which I
believe was common throughout the British Empire - it was
played with two hexagonal strips of metal or wood. On
each face of one of the pieces was marked a number - 1, 2,
3, 4, 6 - and on the sixth face was printed Howzat! On the
other piece the various ways you can lose your wicket were
listed - bowled, Ibw, caught, etc., with on the sixth side the
most exalted and exalting words ever spoken, NOT OUT.

I spent most of the waking hours of my pre-adolescence
playing this game with two imaginary cricket teams com-
posed of the world's greatest writers and the world's
greatest composers. I remember that Tolstoy went in at first
wicket down for the writers. Thomas Hardy was always
high in the batting order yet for one whole summer man-
aged a batting average of only about 11. H.G. Wells was
twelfth man for a long time and at one stage was even
dropped back to play Sheffield Shield for New South Wales.
Handel and Bach, despite their paunches and their progeni-
tive urges, were the stars of the composers' line-up, and I 
remember that Borodin - though a Russian and low in the 
batting order - sometimes scored a century at eigth wicket
down.

            The realities of cricket were more painful than this              
           delightful and private game. Thursday afternoon, we put on          
           our creams under the brazen sky and set off in a crocodile line     
           to some parched suburban pitch. At the head of the line             
           strode a lanky religious brother, possibly Irish but always a       
           fanatic for this British game. Behind him, carrying the             
           blanched cricket bag, two of the best cricketers in the class       
           walked, chatting to him about field placements and test             
           innings which, already in a young life, they had seen plenty        
           of. From the bag came a delicious smell of leather, linseed oil,
           sweat, padding. And they walked in the midst of it, high on it,     
           as acolytes should be. To us butterfingers further back in the      
           line, as to the unbeliever and unworthy at the back of the          
           temple, only the faintest tang reached. You knew that the two       
           bag-carriers were going to be the captains of the day's cricket     
           and you sent messages to them up the line, begging each of
           them indiscriminately to pick you in his team. It was a
           humiliation to be picked ninth or lower. If someone had             
           made me the right offer, I would have sold my soul to be             
           picked fifth.                                                       
            There were certain glamour field placements too. Point,           
           cover, silly mid-on, square leg and slips were the placings of
           glory, and I was torn between them and the fear of that fierce
           six-stitcher ball with a bullet at its heart. The worst insult was   
           to be put somewhere out of trouble, on the grounds that even                        
           if you stopped a ball, your return would be so wide and
           erratic that overthrows and similar disasters would result. I        
           had a curly-headed Byronic friend who was always placed at
           deep fine leg, a point to which very few Australian
           schoolboys of that era ever walloped the ball. Sometimes he
           would forget to change position at the ends of overs, or when
           a left-hander was in. The others would forget him and he
           would stay out there dreaming, oblivious of all the passion at
           the central pitch. Occasionally a wild hook would send one
           his way. He would not have seen the stroke. He would not be
           aware that the red pellet was diving at him out of the sun.

Then, having shaken his head and returned to reality to see
the brother, gentle confrere of Christ, glaring at him from the
umpire's position at the bowler's end, he looked to the sky
from which he knew the threat was coming and was struck in
both eyes by the fierce sun. So that while the ball hung in its
easy trajectory, the fielders closer in, the bearers of the
aromatic bag loudest of all, would begin to mourn the
inevitable dropped catch. 'Geez, ees gunna drop it. Stroik a
loight, Viney, keep yer bloody eyes on it.'

A look of focused intelligence would now come to Viney's
features, his hands would be raised like an Ethiopian's in
prayer and the ball would bounce on his shoulder and so hit
the grass. 'Geez, yor 'is mate, Keneally. Some mate 'e is. Geez,
bloody drongo, that Viney.' And the wicket-keeper would be
standing with gloves on his hips, shaking his head and saying,
'Geez, bloody drongo.'

From such disasters I came to understand that one watched
the ball, never let it out of one's sight. There was no other
way to social success in the antipodes. And in fact there was
no other way to deification - even today, there are few other
ways.

I am proud to say that out of some instinct I stuck to Viney
- I knew that ultimately he was playing a more serious kind
of cricket in his head, even as the ball lobbed on his shoulder,
even as it refused to fall into the sensitive web of his fingers.
But I was a more social animal than Viney. Therefore, I had
to come to terms with the leather orb.

Nature is always profligate, and the rule is that when you
have a few million children all under a national onus to catch,
bowl, bat, then you have to produce some good 'uns. But
Australian society has become more sophisticated since then.
There _are_ one or two writers and even a historian who are
revered. We have found that it _is_ possible for Australians to
have literary ideas about the place, that Australia is not
outside the aesthetic universe. In short Australia - which
used to have one unifying rite, cricket - has now become
pluralist. I cannot but predict it will be a disaster for
    Australian cricket.
                Recently I played in a game between Australian writers 
            (and yes, all you Aussie-bashers, we were able to find eleven!)  
             and Australian Actors' Equity. It was a brilliant Sydney day,    
             the sun coruscating off the harbour, and we striding around
             inspecting a pitch on which Victor Trumper had played. The
             actors' team looked impressive. They were all angular
             Australian Adonises, stars from the Australian soapies which
             you see, as an alternative to the Carson show, in Californian  
             motels at 10.30 at night. They looked like the sort of lads      
             who in my generation would not have been permitted not to
             be brilliant cricketers. In truth they were frightful. We had
             them out before the wives, mistresses and small party of
             devotees had the lunch ready or the beer cold. We noticed
             that there were no recriminations, that they took a cavalier      
             attitude towards their ducks and run-outs. Later, in the field,
             they commiserated with each other over dropped catches.          
             There was no one there to stiffen them with the appropriate      
             chants of 'Geez, no bloody hoper drongo!'                        
               And because of that there was no exultation to the game. I      
             played a stroke over mid-on which would, in the old days          
             when cricket counted, have won me a week's social grace and    
             a nod from the fierce Christian Brother at the stumps. Now,    
             all the urgency and all the ecstasy were gone. Even Kerry  
             Packer, who avenged some forgotten school cricket-team     
             slight by buying the game for himself, must be aware of this.  
             That despite the big money, cricket in Australia has become
             merely a game. And when that happens, we're in trouble.    

                                        THOMAS KENEALLY             

             'The Cyclical Supremacy of Australia in World Cricket' in  
                                            Summer Days                 
                                                 (1981)                        


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