Craig Dodson - A View of Australia From Fine Leg
Craig Dodson | August 03, 2023
The light bulb moment occurred at 2.00am on Day 2 of the Second Test of the 2019 Ashes Series. Staying up to the wee hours watching the pulsating cricket on offer, I realised how much I missed the game and came up with an idea…
Ten games for ten different clubs across Australia during the 2019/20 season. I climbed into bed at the end of play (3.00am local time) and tapped Mrs D on the shoulder to tell her my brilliant idea. Not particularly thrilled at being woken at such an hour, she simply replied, ‘You’re having a mid-life-crisis, go to sleep.’
Looking back, I think it was just my way of clinging onto that boyish dream of playing cricket - the thrill of hitting one in the middle; the adulation of ten teammates slapping you on the back after taking a wicket; a cold beer in the sheds after taking 2/72 off 28 overs, figures that can only excite an off-spinner.
At 41, life was great – beautiful wife, gorgeous kids, steady job, nice house etc. With all that, there was something nagging at me. A desire to have one last crack at doing something I used to love.
It would be too self-indulgent to make this just about me. I went through a very rough patch with depression in my early 30s. In a short period of time I lost my job and then broke up with my partner. It seemed like the end of the world.
I shut myself off. Life was excruciating for a period of six months. I was going nowhere fast.
Over the course of time, and with the help of many important people I recovered.
Life is now great, however, I have never forgotten those dark days, so it was a natural consequence to want to support a mental health charity.
If I couldn’t convince ten clubs across Australia to give up a playing sport to a balding 41-year-old cricketer well past his prime, then the project would be over before it started.
Having played cricket for twenty years, I had a great network of mates spread across the country from whom I could ask a favour and hopefully turn out for their clubs.
Every club I approached said yes. All up, it was about 10,000 kilometres of travel to navigate Australia via planes, trains and automobiles!
The cricket caps from the 10 games
In Game 2 of the adventure I turned out for the Lake Albert Cricket Club in Wagga Wagga. As a 10-year-old, I played my first match there. Playing for the club over the next decade, I fell in love with the game. After a twenty-year absence, would the club still be as I so fondly remembered it?
The Lake Albert Cricket Club is a club rich in history and recently celebrated its 125-year anniversary. Test cricket greats Mark Taylor, Geoff Lawson and Michael Slater have all pulled on the whites for the LACC over the years. As a kid I used to watch Michael Slater bat in the nets. If he played and missed, he would run a lap. I never found out what he would do if he got bowled because I never saw it!
In my last game in Wagga 20 years ago, I played in a First-Grade semi-final. I was batting at three. The first pill took off from a good length and hit me on the gloves. The second hit the same spot, ran along the ground and hit middle stump. I was livid! Re-entering the change rooms, I sent my bat flying only to look up and see a young child and his father whom the bat has just missed. The father happened to be Geoff Lawson! I hoped to be on better behaviour on my return visit.
Situated equidistant from Melbourne and Sydney, Wagga is, pound for pound, the best producer of sporting talent of any country town in Australia – I’ll debate anyone anytime on the topic. To name drop, here is the pointy end of talent that has called Wagga home - Mark Taylor, Geoff Lawson, Michael Slater, Paul Kelly, Wayne Carey, Steve Mortimer, Peter Sterling, Steve Elkington, Nathan Sharp and Scobie Breasley.
Although I now live in Melbourne, I will always consider Wagga to be my hometown.
I arrived at Lake Albert’s home ground, Rawlings Park, just in time to catch the second innings of the First Grade 20/20 clash that preceded my game in the Seconds.
It was a hot day. The type of day where the mozzies drive you crazy and the humidity would expose a lack of fitness. Slowly, my teammates arrived and the introductions began. Brookesy, a familiar face from my previous time at the club, was my skipper for the day. It’s always good to know your skipper before having to have that awkward conversation where you plead ‘Please hide me in the field because I’m old and slow and I’ve got a dodgy quad.’ The reunion was complete when I saw that Mick, my old high school teacher, was umpiring our game. My chances of being given out on a dodgy LBW today were now non-existent.
We won the toss and batted and I had a nice middle order slot at 5. I was nervous. When I started this adventure, I pencilled in a game ‘back home’ and wanted to perform well. I wrestled with this ambition and the reality of not having played for 10 years prior, having relied on dispatching my 5-year-old’s half trackers in the backyard as training.
Our side made good progress before I joined the fray shortly after the 12th over. I was still enjoying the nostalgia when the first pill rose off a length and hit the stickers of the bat. I got a few away and then put ambition before ability, only to hear the death rattle!
The rain came and brought a halt to our innings at the 17 over mark. It looked like this would be it. We waited around and made plans for early afternoon ales and horse race punting. Just as I imagined the taste of my first schooner, the rain stopped and, with overs adjusted, we were back into it.
The temperature has dropped alarmingly. I was fielding at point and chatted with Mick about changing fortunes at our old high school. I was enjoying the chat a little too much when a ball is skied HIGH in my direction. Every shithouse fielder knows the fear this brings. Firstly, I scanned the vicinity, tried to make eye contact with another fielder and hoped they’d intervene. No Luck. I accepted (begrudgingly) that it was my time. I was comfortably positioned when I heard one of my teammates shout out, ‘You are nowhere near it!’ What the hell was he talking about? I cupped my hands in textbook fashion, only to see the ball hit the deck a good foot from my size 11 spikes. I needed a hole to crawl under.
The game was tight as the heavens opened and lightning struck after just 13 overs. Mick decided to pull stumps. I spent three years at university, but I am still unable to understand the Duckworth Lewis system. It turns out we lost.
Back at the pub, I saw the club in full swing. Families were having dinner with older warriors, young blokes discussed where to head later in the evening, and stalwarts chatted about days past.
I got the chance to have a good chat with Simon, the club President. Simon ‘inherited’ the position when no-one was left standing. He found it no easy gig running a cricket club – he needed to manage finances, people, parents and make decisions on so many things. We talked about how the position helped Simon develop skills that he then used in his professional life also. Simon has been in the incredibly difficult position of losing a good friend to mental health battles. I can sense the pain in his voice as he remembers a mate that was taken too soon.
When I was last at Lake Albert Cricket Club twenty years ago (and at any clubs for that matter), you just didn’t talk about mental health. As a society we have come a long way.
Over the day, I had so many quality conversations with blokes I hadn’t seen for twenty years or only known for five minutes. We all shared the common bond of being associated with the mighty Lake Albert Cricket Club with its rich history, family culture and a place you just wanted to be, a place I left twenty years ago, yet a place that just still feels like home.
Over the next 6 months the games ticked by and it was the ultimate cricketing and lifetime adventure. With the exception of getting married and having kids it was the best thing I have ever done. In total, we raised $9,000 for mental health.
I will be forever grateful that I had a crack at this great cricketing adventure.
To purchase a copy of the book please click “A View of Australia From Fine Leg”
