Laurence Elderbrook gives a lesson in opening the batting

< 1 minute read

My memory of last night is a tad hazy. My knuckles are wrapped in bandaging and I think I must have thumped a table in delight when the captain announced that I was to open the batting today. For his part, the captain is missing this match after some sort of accident incapacitated him.

I compose myself in front of the mirror. Resplendent in my cream flannels, I look immaculate. I look the part.

Striding out to the middle, I quickly gauge the conditions and size up the opposition. Having watched the opening bowler deliver a couple of warm-up deliveries to a teammate, I can tell from his action that the first ball will be full and straight.

As the ball is released, I get into position and the ball strikes me in the chest. Perhaps I should have been even further forward. Clearly my movements are being impeded.

I disrobe.

The stand-in captain suddenly feels that I have already blunted the new ball and therefore asks several people to escort me to the dressing room.

I disagree with his assessment and take the only option available to me. I throw back my head, let fly a huge, bestial roar and slip from the men’s grasp.

I evade everyone for 10 or 15 minutes, but eventually I trip and am carried from the field by four men who take a limb each.

The under-11s team practising in the nets adjacent to the ground survey the scene solemnly. They admire my restraint in not admonishing the four men for their impertinence. They admire me. They recognise a great man possessed of the serene dignity afforded to only the very few.

More Laurence Elderbrook

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

Why risk it when it's so easy to sign up?

12 comments

  1. 10 or 15 minutes! That must have been some evasion dance, Laurence.

    Well done.

    Any chance of a more substantial description of that bit?

  2. It warrants little elaboration.

    Suffice to say my pursuers were reluctant to grab hold of me from certain angles and indeed reacted as if electrocuted when they inadvertently made contact with certain appendages.

  3. On the right hand side I am being implored to Date the Elite. Except the elite representative does not even know how to put a shirt on properly. Also she appears to have a body that mysteriously darkens in tone the further down one looks. An accident with the tanning machine? Or is it the elite thing to do these days?

  4. King has produced an even more alarming thread for me iviting an alliance with a Catholic priest, I guess King gets a decent income from it?

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