Published 'New Hope International' 1996
A death-rattle from behind him. The stumps had been ripped by the weird spin off the seam – and the batsman walked like a ghost with nothing left to haunt except the whites he wore. The thwacking thud of leathery grenade upon the thick edge of a willow paddle dug another run from the hard pitch a half an hour after the nex batsman’s stricken stride for strike. The turning pitch had, for once, failed to beath his guard, producing a fielder’s stifled squawk of leg before! The stump camera broadcast a magnified insect of back of bat’s wing, hinting at one more potential spectator of the next ball’s padding off. The leg-spinner had already taken the skin off his fingers as a result of his relentless bowl at the resistant forces of the opposition’s tail. He rubbed the stain off the dead ball to his inner thigh. The swing which the air wafted to and fro teased his blonde head-top as he prepared for yet one more incisive curling lob towards the crease. The stitched pod’s natural line diverted as it dizzied off the skimless rough – bruising straight past the dead bat into its wielder’s box – spoiling the lunch he was to have gnawed for eternity: the corpse with pads on.
