Hat Trick! (31 page)

Tom Veivers holds the record for the Australian who has bowled the most balls in one innings. Playing in a Test match against England at Manchester in 1964, he sent down 571 deliveries. He bowled 95.1 overs, 36 maidens and took 3 wickets for 155 runs.

WE
scrounged another 39 runs off the Scorpions’ other bowlers. ‘Extras’ ended up being the third top scorer with 13. It was easy to see how frustrated Scott felt at not being able to bowl at our lower order. Perhaps the Scorpions’ captain was being a bit generous in holding him back.

‘I think the Scorpions have made their first mistake,’ Mr Pasquali said, smiling as he threw a ball at us at the changeover.

And with that comment our whole attitude changed.

‘Taking Scott off?’ Jimbo asked, flinging the ball to Ally, who would be keeping.

‘Exactly,’ Mr Pasquali replied.

‘The ball’s doing quite a bit out there. Tight, accurate bowling will be rewarded, I assure you.’ Maybe Mr Pasquali was just trying to get us to be positive. So what? It was working.

Jimbo nudged me and nodded towards a guy standing on his own 10 metres away to our left.

‘It’s Trevor Barnes,’ I whispered. ‘Coach of the Under-18 representative side.’

‘The very same,’ Jimbo said quietly.

I took the new ball and went out to measure my run-up. I thought back to Danny Chapman and the chat we’d had. The Scorpions hadn’t had that experience. Surely that was an advantage for us?

But it wasn’t Danny Chapman with the ball. It was Toby Jones. And that was going to be just as good, I thought, looking around at the field Jono had set. I’d shown him my plan and he was happy to go with it—for the first few overs, anyway. Like Georgie, he was nervous about not having a third man.

‘Minh, go closer to point,’ I shouted. I also directed Martian to go a bit squarer from his position at silly mid-off. That way I had opened up a nice gap through mid-off to tempt the batter into driving at a ball that was either swinging away or not at a length full-enough for driving.

‘C’mon, Toby, go right through ’em,’ a voice I didn’t recognise yelled from the boundary. I didn’t turn around.

‘Play,’ Mr Pasquali called.

I ran in hard, looking every bit like I was going to bowl the fastest possible delivery. Halfway to the wicket, though, I spread my fingers on either side of the ball. It was the perfect slower ball, straight and
pitched fuller. The batter’s eyes lit up, but he was into the shot way too early. He had already completed his stroke when the ball hit the bat. Gently the ball ballooned back towards me.

I took it in both hands at knee height. The batter banged his bat into the pitch and walked off, staring at me, while my team-mates all rushed in to celebrate.

‘I thought you were a pace bowler,’ Rahul said, high-fiving me.

‘Not all the time,’ I replied.

‘Body language, everyone,’ Jono said, clapping his hands. He wanted us looking confident and in control.

‘Game on,’ I whispered to Georgie as we headed back to our positions. She was at mid-on.

‘It’s not the only thing on,’ she said, winking at me.

‘C’mon, Toby!’ Jimbo shouted from the gully, clapping his hands.

I let Georgie’s comment slip through to the keeper—I didn’t want any non-cricket issues getting in the way and distracting me.

I took a wicket in my third over, then another in my fourth. The moment we’d all been waiting for arrived when Scott Craven marched out to the crease. The whole team stared at him as he took guard from Mr Pasquali, calling for two legs.

‘One more over?’ Mr Pasquali called over to the other umpire, who looked at his watch, then nodded.
What would Scott do with one over to survive before lunch?

I brought Georgie and Minh in closer, hoping to tempt Scott to go over the top. The plan worked—sort of. I should have known better. Scott carved the first two balls over Minh’s head and out to the cover boundary for four each. He clipped the third off his pads for a two. The fourth ball went right through him, but he belted the next back over my head for another four. The last ball he blocked. He’d just belted me for 14 runs.

‘C’mon, guys,’ Jono urged as we walked from the field for lunch. ‘We’re only one wicket away from being level if not ahead in this game.’

He was right, but Scott Craven was a big wicket. The scoreboard had the Scorpions at 3/36 and we were only 58 runs ahead. Splitting up, we headed over to our respective families for food and drink.

Jono gave me two more overs after lunch. The Scorpions had changed their tactics—they were obviously waiting for me to finish my spell, like we’d waited for Scott to finish his.

Slowly and steadily the Scorpions started to accumulate runs with first Jono and Rahul bowling, and then when Jason and Gavin came on.

It was the hottest part of the day and we were struggling, but Scott and his partner had taken their score from the 20s into the 120s without too much sweat or bother.

‘Maybe we should try and buy a wicket,’ I said to the team at the drinks break.

‘Buy a wicket?’ Ally asked. ‘You want to bribe Scott Craven?’

‘No, let’s set him up. He’s itching to put one away; so is the other guy. I reckon they’ve been told to grind us into the dirt.’

‘Toby’s right,’ Jono said. ‘We’ve gotta try something different. It’s not happening for us at the moment.’ He glanced at the scoreboard. ‘They’re 30 odd runs ahead and putting us out of the game. Remember, we’ve got to win.’

‘What exactly did you have in mind, Toby?’ Jimbo asked. He sounded positive.

‘Give Georgie a bowl. She’s accurate and can mix up her pace a bit.’

‘She’ll get pasted,’ Martian said, shaking his head. ‘No offence, Georgie, but you’re up and down—no spin or movement.’

‘Exactly! So they get lulled into doing something stupid.’

‘Or get lulled into belting her over the boundary line,’ Martian said dejectedly.

‘Jono?’ Rahul said, looking over to him.

‘That’s time, boys,’ the Scorpions’ umpire called.

‘Okay. We’ll give it a try. Two overs and then we’ll review. Georgie, which end do you want?’

‘Into the breeze,’ she replied, pointing to the far end. ‘Bloody ripper idea, Tobes,’ she said, clapping me on the back.

‘Thought you’d approve.’

The Scorpions pair played out Rahul’s next over, taking only a couple of singles. Scott was on strike for Georgie’s first ball, and I watched his face closely. He was looking smug, yet determined. He would hate to get out to Georgie. He padded her first ball back down the pitch.

‘Bowled, George,’ Ally said, clapping from behind the stumps.

‘Right there,’ Jimbo called from covers.

But Georgie’s next ball was short and wide. Scott leaned back and hoicked it from outside his off-stump over mid-wicket. The ball landed just inside the boundary.

Jono told Minh to drop back from his position at mid-wicket. Scott watched lazily, chewing his gum and smiling. He put the next ball out over cover. Same result.

Now the field was spread. I didn’t think Scott was interested in singles, and I was right. He blasted the next ball wide past mid-on. It produced four more runs, but the shot lacked control.

‘On your toes, everyone,’ I shouted, clapping my hands.

‘Settle,’ I heard the Scorpions’ coach hiss through clenched teeth from his position at square leg. Scott looked towards him in surprise.

I made a quick movement of my hand to Georgie when she turned to look at me. ‘Faster one,’ I mouthed.

This one was onto Scott much quicker. He slashed at the ball, which was delivered short and outside off-stump, aiming to belt it over mid-wicket again. But instead, the ball shot directly into the sky.

‘Mine!’ I screamed, sensing it was coming in the general direction of square leg.

‘Leave it for Ally!’ someone called.

‘
Mine!
’ I yelled again. The ball had only just reached its peak. Time stood still. My mind went blank as I stared into space at the little red dot, now hurtling back towards me at alarming speed. I squinted. I was too far forwards. I took a step back, then another, then staggered three more paces.

I reverse-cupped my hands in front of my face. Still edging backwards, I caught the ball, then stumbled and fell over. I clutched the ball to my chest, closing my eyes in delight and relief.

‘Told you it was a good idea,’ Martian said, grinning.

I was hauled to my feet and we jumped about like galahs for a few moments before Jono held up his hands.

‘We’re in this game,’ he roared at us. ‘Two more wickets before tea, okay?’

We got him three. I came back on to bowl and snapped up Scott’s partner, lbw, with a fast yorker that got him on the toe. Then Rahul got a lucky break when their number six batter played on. The ball spun back and clunked into the base of his off-stump, just dislodging the bail.

The Scorpions were rattled. Jimbo swooped on a ball played into the covers in the last over before tea. The batters stuttered and stumbled. ‘No!’ the nonstriker finally shouted, holding up an arm. But the batter had committed. He turned and tried to regain his ground, but Jimbo’s flat and awesomely fast throw to Ally caught him well short.

The dismissed batter flung his bat into the stumps in anger and frustration, and swore at his partner. Ally was lucky as the bat missed her by centimetres.

‘Nicko, here—now!’ The Scorpions’ umpire demanded.

We went to tea a much happier group, though we could hear shouting from the other team’s clubrooms during the tea break. I assumed the coach was getting stuck into them again.

By contrast, Mr Pasquali was quiet and friendly. He spoke to us individually, encouraging and giving each of us something to focus on for the next session.

The Scorpions’ last three wickets put on about 40 runs, though, which was a bit disappointing. We dropped two catches during that last hour and I had what looked like a plumb lbw decision turned down too. The batter shouted straight away that he’d hit it, but it was unlikely that Mr Pasquali was influenced by that call.

We left the field as a tight group at the end of the innings. The day wasn’t quite over for us, especially for our openers Cameron and Jono, who
would have to face a very tricky three overs to see out the day.

Padded up and ready to go in, I sat down to watch the action and see if we could get through the overs without losing a wicket. We’d already decided that we wouldn’t risk Jimbo going in tonight, so I was given the role of night watchman—the batter whose job it is to go in if someone gets out, and survive till stumps.

They almost made it!

Jono was given out lbw to a Scott Craven yorker—a vicious and amazingly fast ball that smashed intothe bottom of his pads. Jono was trapped in front of his wicket, absolutely plumb.

That left me with three balls to face from Scott Craven.

‘Survive, survive,’ I said to myself as he ran in to bowl. The first ball whizzed past my off-stump. Scott threw up his arms and screamed in anger and disbelief. Maybe it had been closer to my stumps than I thought.

Two balls to go.

The next caught the edge of my bat and flew towards second slip. I spun around to see the guy thrust out his left hand. The ball bobbled, then dropped to the ground as he rolled over. To my amazement he jumped back up, shouting and holding the ball up for all the world to see.

I didn’t move. Scott charged down the wicket yelling in delight. I looked over to Mr Pasquali, who’d
swapped positions to be at square-leg for our innings, and gently shook my head.

‘How’s that?’ Scott yelled, turning to the Scorpions’ umpire.

I’d never felt so sick in my life. ‘Don’t do it,’ I muttered.

The umpire looked over at Mr Pasquali, obviously not sure about the catch.

‘That was not a catch,’ Mr Pasquali said firmly. ‘The ball hit the ground.’

‘Not out,’ the Scorpion’s umpire called.

‘What?’ Scott said, looking dumbstruck and pointing to the fielder with the ball. The umpire was unmoved. Slowly the players returned to their positions, swearing and muttering.

I settled over my bat and waited for the last ball of the day.

‘Cheat,’ one of the kids mumbled behind me. I straightened up and pulled away from the wicket.

‘Is there a problem?’ the umpire asked. He obviously hadn’t heard the comment.

‘Just a bit noisy down here,’ I yelled back. I glanced at Mr Pasquali. He smiled and gave a slight nod.

Scott charged in and bowled a bouncer. Surprise, surprise.

I ducked, but hardly needed to because the ball soared over my head as well as the keeper’s and flew to the boundary for four byes. It didn’t matter how the runs came, as long as they did.

In 1997, Glenn McGrath took 8 for 38 in a Test match against England at Lord’s. His bowling figures for the first innings were 20.3 overs, 8 maidens, 8 for 38. These are the best bowling figures for any Australian at Lord’s. McGrath also took 8 for 24 against Pakistan in Perth in 2004.

Saturday—evening

‘
TOBY
, we have a plan,’ Georgie said excitedly.

‘To stop Scott Craven taking all 10 wickets in the second innings?’ I asked, just as Mum brought in a plate piled high with hamburgers stuffed with lettuce, onion, cheese, tomato, egg and sauce. She then disappeared outside where the adults were having drinks, while Ally, Georgie, Nat and I blobbed in front of the TV, ready to tuck in. Somehow I knew that the plan Georgie was talking about had nothing to do with the grand final.

‘Ally did some checking out. She knows the people in the house that we went to with Jim. You know—to get that letter?’

I looked over at Nat, who was nibbling on her hamburger and feeding the odd bit to an army of Beanie Bears she had propped up against the couch. She wasn’t listening to us.

‘Who are they?’ I remembered that Ally lived close to the area where Jim had driven us when following Smale.

‘Well,’ Ally said, putting her plate down, ‘I don’t really know them, only to say hi. Their name is Walters. They have a girl a few years older than me, called Jessica. The weird thing is they’re on holiday.’

‘How do you know that?’ I asked, taking a bite.

‘Their neighbours are collecting their mail.’

‘And how do you know the neighbours are collecting their mail?’

Ally sighed. ‘Because Henry lives next door to them and we often walk to school together.’

‘You and Henry?’ I asked.

‘Is there a problem, Toby?’ Georgie asked, frowning.

‘No,’ I said. I was still on a bit of a high after the day’s play, and I would rather have talked about the fake catch or my catch to get rid of Scott, our decision to give Georgie a bowl or the state of the game.

I shrugged. ‘Okay, so what’s the plan?’ I’d made a conscious decision, along with Jim, to put the time travel issue to one side while the grand final was on. It was after all, only two days of my life. But the girls had other ideas and their energy and enthusiasm was grabbing my attention.

‘We think that the father is the fifth person—the fifth traveller to go with Smale to wherever they’re going,’ Georgie began.

‘A cricket match in the past?’ I suggested.

Georgie nodded, taking a drink. ‘So, Smale thinks someone’s coming because the fifth person has replied.’

‘Only he hasn’t,’ I said.

‘Exactly, but Smale doesn’t know that. What if this guy’s daughter, Jessica, went instead of him?’

‘But didn’t you say they’re on holidays?’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Ally said, pointing at me.

‘Riiiiight,’ I said, slowly.

The two girls looked at me.

‘But how does Jessica go if she’s not here?’ It seemed pretty straightforward to me.

‘Jessica doesn’t go,’ Ally said quietly. ‘I go.’

There was a shout from the TV. The Aussies had just taken another wicket.

‘You go?’ I asked. Ally nodded.

‘Brilliant, huh?’ said Georgie.

‘Tell me how it’s brilliant,’ I said.

‘Smale doesn’t know me from Adam,’ Ally explained.

‘Don’t be daft—’

‘Wait on!’ Georgie said, glaring at me. ‘Let the girl finish.’

I sighed, popped the last mouthful of hamburger into my mouth and turned back to Ally.

‘Smale won’t recognise me,’ she said. ‘I’ll explain that I’m Jessica, Geoff Walters’ daughter, and that I’ll be taking the trip on his behalf.’

‘Told you it was brilliant,’ Georgie repeated.

‘Okay,’ I sighed, grabbing another hamburger. ‘First, you said yourself, Ally, that Jessica is two years older
than you. Second, you say Mr Smale won’t recognise you. Except he’s just spent the entire afternoon watching you play a game of cricket. And third…’

‘Third?’ Ally said, smiling and looking like she didn’t have a care in the world.

‘Third? Um, yeah, well, third is that there’s no way Smale will let a girl travel with him and a group of adults. He’s probably asking them to pay 10 thousand bucks each for the privilege.’

‘Great. So let’s just do nothing, hey?’ Ally said, looking at Georgie. ‘Let’s sit on our backsides here, eat hamburgers and—’

‘Okay!’ I shouted. Nat looked up sharply. She had been talking happily to her ‘friends’.

Georgie turned to her. ‘Bet you haven’t got Aussiebear,’ she said out of the blue.

‘Nope.’ Nat was surprised. ‘Have you?’

‘It was the first one I got. You want me to get it for you?’

‘Would you?’ she asked, no longer troubled by my outburst. ‘Cool!’

Georgie raced out of the room with Nat hard on her heels.

‘Okay, so how do you plan to do it?’ I said, turning to Ally.

‘No probs. I…well,
we
go down to the Scorpions’ clubrooms, and I’ll go in on my own and explain the situation. If I can’t go on the tour, then we just go back home.’

‘But what if he does recognise you?’

Ally shrugged. ‘I guess I’ll just skedaddle.’

‘Yeah, and hope that Smale doesn’t—’

‘Toby, Smale will be occupied with the other people there. I’m going to be hanging around at first, like I just happened to be there. Then, if he does recognise me, we haven’t given anything away. He’ll simply tell me to run away.’

‘And you will?’

‘And I will.’

Georgie and Ally had the evening all planned. I headed to Georgie’s house at 8.30 to ‘watch a DVD’. Ally had made a similar arrangement, while Georgie was supposedly going over to Ally’s. We all hopped on our bikes and rode towards the Scorpions’ ground. Ally looked completely different. Her long dark hair was now bunched up on her head, and her eyes appeared darker. Maybe it was the make-up. She had neat-looking clothes on and seemed taller and older.

‘You can stop staring at her,’ Georgie hissed as we rode onto the street.

‘I’m not!’

‘Not what?’ Ally called from in front.

‘Totally preoccupied with the game tomorrow,’ Georgie finished with a grin.

There were lights on at the Scorpions’ rooms and four vehicles in the car park when we arrived.

‘If he does look suspicious straight away,’ Georgie said, ‘just say you came back because you left your hat or something here.’

‘Okay.’ Ally leaned her bike up against the cemetery fence that ran behind the car park. ‘Will you wait for me?’

‘If you’re not back in 15 minutes, we’ll assume you made it in.’ Georgie looked at me.

‘Which means it should be about an hour at the most before you’re back,’ I added.

‘Hopefully not more,’ Georgie grimaced.

I had a thought. ‘Ally, listen! If it does look like you’re going on this trip, see if you can sneak out just for a moment and tell us where you’re going. That way, if there’s any trouble, I—’

‘We!’ Georgie interrupted.

‘
We
can come and help you.’

Georgie and I wheeled the bicycles behind a nearby old scout hall and sat down on the grass to wait. I guess we both expected Ally to be back pretty quickly, but after 10 minutes of chatting about the grand final and what might happen tomorrow, our conversation dried up as we thought of Ally and what might be happening.

‘Should we go and take a look?’ I asked.

Georgie nodded. ‘If they’ve gone there’ll be no one there anyway.’

There were fewer lights on in the clubrooms now, only a glow from a room behind Smale’s office. We hadn’t been in there before. All the outside doors and windows appeared to be locked, except for one window that was open just a few centimetres.

We crept over to the open window, freezing when we heard a man’s voice.

‘Brilliant!’ someone exclaimed, and there was the sound of hands clapping.

‘He must be showing them something,’ I whispered. ‘Maybe the scorecard?’ I edged away from the building.

But Georgie wasn’t listening. She’d picked up a piece of paper that had been half-pushed out from beneath the main door.

‘Brisbane, 19…’ Georgie stopped reading and looked up at me.

‘What?’ I said, snatching the paper from her.

‘Toby!’

‘Brisbane, 1960. Tied Test,’ I read aloud. Ally had already been there. This was a disaster. I turned to Georgie.

‘I know, I know,’ she groaned. ‘It was a slight chance.’

‘
Slight
chance?’

‘Well don’t you get so high and mighty,’ Georgie fired back. ‘
You
took her there.
You
knew as well as anyone else.’

We both paused, breathing heavily, staring at each other. I couldn’t remember Georgie and me ever fighting before. Not once had we had a cross word for each other.

Georgie closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Toby, we’re not going to get anywhere standing here arguing. What will we do?’

‘The problem is we don’t know if she’s in any trouble. She may be fine. If there’s enough distance or time between her two selves…oh, hell!’

‘What?’

‘When I took her to the game—it was near the end, obviously—there was something wrong…’

‘Toby, there’s always something wrong with us when we go back in time. Rahul in India. Jimbo, watching his dad. And Jay! God, remember what he did down in Hobart?’

‘No, this was different. Ally was really scared. She kept looking around, and she said something about someone calling her name.’

‘Smale?’

I shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe.’

Georgie pulled a pencil from her pocket and scrawled a note on the back of the one Ally had written.

‘And how will we get that to her?’ I asked.

‘I’ll just put it on her bike. We’ve got to try something.’

I sat down with my back against the brick wall of the clubrooms and watched Georgie walk along the fence line to the bikes leaning against the scout hall.

‘Maybe we should give it a few more minutes?’ I said, looking at my watch as she returned.

‘How long has it been?’ Georgie asked.

‘Well, we don’t know how long they’ve been away,’ I replied, ‘but it’s nearly half past nine. Let’s give it a few more minutes.’

While we waited, we checked out the cars parked nearby and paced around the clubrooms.

‘Toby!’ Georgie whispered, beckoning me over to the open window. She had pushed a section of curtain to one side, and I put my head next to hers and listened.

‘They’re back.’ She spoke softly.

‘Or they haven’t gone yet. Can you see Ally?’

Holding up a hand, Georgie shook her head. There didn’t seem to be the excitement in the room that we’d heard earlier.

‘But what about Colin?’ someone said, his voice rising above the others. A door banged shut.

‘There’s something wrong,’ Georgie said, looking worried and backing away from the window.

‘What?’ I leaned in closer, trying to hear what was happening. I heard a few more shouts before Georgie grabbed at my sleeve. Something was about to happen. Crouching, we ran back to the fence, then along the side of the cemetery, to our bikes.

‘We shouldn’t have let her go, Toby,’ Georgie said, slamming her helmet on and grabbing her bike. ‘Let’s go down to the end of the street and wait a few minutes.’

‘I’d love to know what’s happened,’ I said.

‘C’mon, Ally. Where
are
you?’ she screamed into the wind as we tore off down the road.

‘Guys!’ came a shout from behind, just as the words left Georgie’s lips.

We braked hard and swung our bikes around, amazed to hear Ally’s voice. She was riding hard, trying to catch up with us.

Georgie dropped her bike and gave her a hug. We walked our bikes home, not only because it was dark and Ally was out of breath, but so we could hear the whole story before we got there.