Photo of the Week "98no"

   Last weekend I spent time in Scone but also in Cessnock on Saturday and Sunday, facilitating a "Living Our Values" workshop and reflecting with locals on the UCA through the lenses of it's founding values or basis, sense of call and the nature of leadership and power.
   This meant that I drove past a place of significance in my own story several times. This park and cricket oval is known as "Chinaman's Hollow" near Weston in the coalfields. I've had a bit of a look at how it was named through the history of agriculture and coal exploration but the first half dozen references are too general to assist. It's a turf wicket and the white picket fence is in excellent shape. It's part of my cricketing history for a funny and successful day out.
   I started a cricket team at my church after playing for another local one for a few years. The day I'm thinking of we were short of players. The fun started when my dad, Stewart gave spectating a rest and took the field to help us out. A ball was clipped off the thickish outside edge and ran away to the 3rd man area... dad took off after it and on turning, pulled a calf muscle and needed to leave the field. My brother Mark tells me I had told him he was too young but we needed him now anyhow!! He was the best player of a straight bat in the backyard from the age of six onwards and of course has several Maitland cricketing records to his name in 1st and 2nd Grade for Tenambit-Morpeth having only recently stopped playing.
   We lost early wickets and it was one of those days where I either get rolled for 3-4 or make a few. Not known for my running between wickets I used a heavy bat [at that stage of my playing career] and enjoyed finding the boundary by backing my 'eye' against most bowlers in the comp [unless as I say I was clean bowled or caught out for zero or a few]. The left armer 'Darcy' was my nemesis with the in swinger but otherwise I usually got myself out having a go....
   It should be noted I found a willing batting partner in Scotty Salmon [I never remember whether he made 13 or 30] who happily held up an end as I set about chasing a tough target with only 9 or 10 batsmen available and most of them having been and gone...
   I remember a lucky shot for six just over the fence at mid off to the left of the brick shelter in the photo. The bowler moved his fielder around to the left further away from the shed and the next one went just over long on where he had been standing. Some stern words and the bowler moved him to half way from where he was and where he had been. I didn't really mean to hit the next one straight over his head but this time 20m beyond the fence. It was a great day of challenging myself and most gambles coming off. The fielder offered the bowler the old snooker joke about the disappearing cricket balls, that "we were done with the reds, would he like to start on the colours?"
   Late in the day we approached their total and in lower grade cricket with two scorebooks and volunteers from each team and overs to spare [let me explain that] you usually let the batsmen get a few runs past the opposition so any scoring error is covered by the margin of the win. The scorers had let us know when we had 25, 20 and 10 runs to get and I was sure we were past the total when they kept saying "one more over, one more over"... I wondered if we had misunderstood and we were counting down to nearly 35 overs... I persisted in asking in case we ran out of overs....
The scorers called out that we were about 14 or 17 runs past their score, but I was 98 not out...
   In that split second I just knew I didn't feel right about batting on for a 100 that would put us 20 runs past the opposition. I still feel like I made the right choice... though it remains my top score and sits alongside 7-30 bowling, when we only had 7 players, as my two memorable Maitland cricketing memories... It's funny how that whole story came flooding back as I drove past on Saturday morning and stopped to take this photo in the fading light on Sunday afternoon... It seems a long time ago and only yesterday. It was a long way back from the old man's torn calf and my ten year younger brother fielding at fine leg to a spirited win!!