Can you remember how you first fell in love with cricket?

Growing up in a small country town like Condobolin, it was Rugby League in winter Cricket in the summer.
A few of my friends played, so I decided to give it a go.
The short of it is, the high I got when I got one out of the screws, that feeling of a specy, or stumping I’ve been chasing ever since. However the friendships you make along the way will last forever.
BTW……. I hate cricket too ….😂

I come from the country where we played league or tennis in winter , cricket in summer .
I loved batting ,hated fielding and practice.
I did however love the mateship and travel that’s what I really loved .
Cricket friendships last a lifetime.

Grew up in Deniliquin, a country town in southern NSW and played junior cricket in the morning and senior tennis in the afternoon until I was 16. Confronted by having to make the choice I went with the family favourite of cricket. Dad and brothers were playing, Mum was on the Ladies Committee. I think the real love of the game was playing backyard cricket with my brothers. I was lucky enough to play a couple of hundred games of senior cricket with one of those brothers. It is probably still the number one thing that keeps us connected.

I grew up in a safe, middle class backyard in Miranda, created for me by aspirational working class parents from Kogarah. My inherited social hinterland was of the daring do of St George in rugby league and of course, in cricket. My father's family were besotted with the game, believing St George to be the best cricket team in the world. My Grandfather, Les Byrne, played lower grades with the club in the 1920's, supposedly knocking Bradman's cap off in a net session. Four of his sons - my great uncles - Leslie, Lance, Bobby and Alan - all played for the club, with three of them now on pickets at Hurstville and Alan, one of the team of the decade in the 1940's. My Dad's brother, Brian and great uncle Alan were my tutors in the backyard at Miranda, always urging a solid forward defence and that ubiquitous high left elbow when cover driving. "Don't cut or hook until you are fifty." How would I ever get there. Needless to say, my bastardisation of their teaching never led me to great honours in the game, but I did soak in their evocation on mates and loyalty. It was a message my Dad always sold me for free. Interestingly Skeeter - Alan - never talked about his playing days and it wasn't until I was much older I was made aware of his involvement.
From the age of about 8, my best mate John Hildred and myself used to spend every afternoon and most of the weekends playing backyard Tests, always at our place because we had the room. They were epic, no holds barred events, punctuated by broken windows and jumping in the above ground pool that lived at wide mid on. When not playing we were glued to the black and white coverage from the ABC. We joined the local club, Miranda Magpies and played together into early adulthood, winning a premiership there in the early 70's. Midnight Oil member, Martin Rotsey, was our opening bowler.
In early 1969, my brother in law, in an effort to ingratiate himself to the family and win me over, took me to my first Test match - Aust v Windies at the SCG. The aging superstars from the Caribbean led by Sobers against a confident Australian team, twelve months away from a hiding in South Africa. Dougie made 242 and 103x (Dad took me to see the second hundred) and I scored the first in tally marks in the back of an old exercise book. They were probably the greatest days of my childhood. Years later, I reminisced about that coming-of-age day in a poem called "When Dougie Did The Double" and was lucky enough to have it chosen for the 100th Test exhibition in the SCG Museum during the Aust v India big shebang. It hung, fittingly, beside Dougie's cap for that 1969 match.
Cricket may well be a metaphor for western civilisation but on a micro level, it has been the great constant, the love I could always rely on. To borrow an indigenous concept, it has been my songline which has led me forward, always connected with my past, present and future.

My most cherished memories are going to the old Cricketers’ Club at the Gabba with my father Graham. Dad instilled in me his love of the game.

I do remember some of the great Queensland players of the era: Chappell & Thomson of course but also Martin Kent, David Ogilvie, Phil Carlson & Geoff Dymock.

My first cricketing memory is an odd one. The only thing I recall of the famed 1974/75 Ashes tour was John Edrich having his rib broken by Dennis Lillee in Sydney. I distinctly remember being at Sea World of all places when I heard it on the ABC.

During my early years Greg Chappell and Dennis Lillee were the standouts for Australia and Viv Richards’ batting cemented him as my all-time favourite batsman.

Our individual cricket journeys start with our earliest memories, and I feel very lucky to have grown up watching such a golden age of cricket.

Brabourne Stadium, Bombay, 18th Dec 1967. My cousin invited me to see the last day of the Test Match - India v/s West Indies. Over 35,000 people. Electric atmosphere. I was mesmerised. HOOKED. Hopelessly. It was Clive Lloyd's Test debut. I also got to see Gary Sobers, Basil Butcher, Seymour Nurse, Wes Hall. The Indian team also had some great stars: Chandrasekhar, Ajit Wadekar, Chandu Borde, Salim Durrani, M.L. Jaisimha. I had hardly played some street cricket before then, but after that I did not stop playing for over 45 years in India, England, Australia and have watched Tests in another 4 countries.

I am NOT a tragic. I am a VICTIM of cricket.