cricket with balls

I was brought up deep in the bosom of a fundamental cricket family. My father was one, but it went deeper than that, with uncles, my grandfather, and cousins all getting in on the act.

At Christmas, Easter, Mother’s day, Father’s day, Football games, Birthdays or any other reason more than one of us was in the room together the talk would turn to cricket.

It was all passionately discussed, and by passionate I mean loud, and often (at least when myself and big daddy were involved) sweary.

If you wanted to win any cricket argument you had to be louder and more cock sure of yourself than at least one other Kimber, maybe two, and that is never easy.

My uncle Gary was a large, loud, sarcastic shit, a great uncle, but arguing with him was like wresting with an eel.  It didn’t matter how good you were, you could never find good place to grab, as he was so slippery.

Even though I never saw him play (well, was never old enough to remember) through all the stories over the year I feel like I was there watching them all.

The day he threw the bat (which weighed over 3 pounds) about 70 metres after a dismissal.  His running of a single as the ball was thrown over the head of the bowler when it was being returned to him.  How he, my dad and my other uncle ran Campbellfield Cricket Club.  And his work at leg slip.

Gary would talk about leg slip like it was the one position in cricket that could save us all.  Talk of the catches he took there went beyond mere legend; they became part of the Kimber DNA.  Should one of the non-cricket fan Kimbers find themselves one day in the leg slip position in a backyard game of cricket, they shall instantly just feel like they are in the right spot, and stay there waiting for the one that comes fast off the face of the bat.

Part of the allure of all of this leg slip talk was because when I grew up, the position would hardly be used in cricket.  I can’t think of a match when a leg slip was used unless there were just 5 fielders around the bat for a spinner and one of them happened to be a leg slip.

While that is still a leg slip, it is more about pressure than leg slip position.  Get as many fielders around the batsman as you can and hope he freaks out.

Now I see the leg slip coming back, slowly, but it is there.  Peter Siddle has bowled with one more than a few times.  Andre Nel used one with Surrey in the first game this year.  But my favourite was in the semi final of the IPL.

Yes it was too a spinner, Murali from memory, but being that it was in the latter stages of the semi final, there wasn’t 5 guys around the bat, just two, a slip, and a leg slip.

It just looked so good to me.  The leg slip just standing there as an attacking position, trying to catch the batsmen behind his back.  The ninja fielding position.

At the time I was commentating on test match sofa and I could barely contain my excitement at this event.  Unfortunately, like often happens in T20 cricket, something else grabbed my attention.

There was an emotional pull in seeing it.  At the time I couldn’t even think why I liked it so much, but over the next few days it all came back, the chats, the arguments, the yelling, and the lionisation of leg slip.

That leg slip meant something to me, and it was way more than just a reaction to great captaincy from Dhoni.

I could see my uncle smiling somewhere without even knowing why.  The smug bastard.

Long live the leg slip.