Then there
is 28 for 3 by “Jennie Walker” – a
pen name for a writer called Charles Boyle (what if cricketers had game names?;
another time, perhaps) – in which an eternal triangle is played out to the
background of an England v India Test.
And I learn
from the 2012 Wisden – received a
couple of days ago – that Alan Gibson’s nemesis PJK Gibbs has a cricket novel, Settling the Score, on the way. Gibbs’
dogged approach to opening the batting for Derbyshire regularly prompted Gibson
to scorn:
When Gibbs…was out for 40 scored in 223 minutes, he
walked back to the pavilion in a silence which was eloquent and not, in the circumstances,
churlish. 7 June 1968
After giving
up the unequal struggle against the new ball Peter Gibbs became a successful writer,
for stage, screen and radio, including more than 50 episodes of Heartbeat and several dramas with
cricket themes or connections. Like several cricket players turned journalists
(I mean you, Mark Nicholas), it is to be hoped that he is more entertaining to
read than watch.
Any of these
works might have been included in The Wisden
Cricketer’s list of the top 50 cricket books had they been published a few
years earlier. As it is, Adult Book
by Malcolm Knox is the only fiction represented. Knox is in the tradition of
Alan Ross as a writer whose work can be found in both the sport and literary
sections of the paper. He was cricket correspondent, then deputy literary
editor of the Sydney Morning Herald,
and still writes about the game, most recently as Greg Chappell’s ghost.
The story
moves between two timelines, one before and one after a Sydney New Year early
this century. The central characters are the Brand family. Dr John Brand, the
father, is alive in the first timeline, dead in the second. His wife Margaret,
and their three sons are the other major characters. Davis, the eldest has
followed his father into medicine. Hammett, the youngest – estranged from the
family as the story begins – is a significant figure behind the scenes in
Sydney’s pornography industry (hence the title). The middle son, Chris, is the
lynchpin of the Australian middle order. He is 34 and has played 91 Tests and
201 ODIs. To describe him as hard-bitten is an understatement. In comparison
Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh are happy-go-lucky chancers.
The later
timeline takes us through the New Year Test against South Africa at the SCG. As
it begins Chris Brand is dealing with his father’s death and is fighting to
save his career: his last six innings have accrued 0, 0, 0, 0, 1 and 1.
And there’s the
thing. We would understand that the player was struggling to hold his place if
a couple of low double-figure scores had been thrown in to that sequence, or the
ducks halved in number. But Knox carries a heavy bat and wants to clear the
ropes, when delicate shots played with a lighter blade would be more satisfying
to the discriminating spectator. Throughout the book such points are
underscored too heavily. For example, we have already got that John Brand is a
porn-obsessed old man by the time Knox has him leave a family gathering to
slather over more of the hard stuff on the internet.
The best
parts of the book are the descriptions of the cricket, particularly Chris
Brand’s redemptive innings. After –predictably – being dropped at third slip
early on, he survives through to lunch, rediscovering form and confidence in
the process.
…Chris’s mind is drained.
There is no longer a need for solutions. There is only a ball, and his bat…His
bat and the ball start arriving at the same place at the same time. The
scratchiness, the hesitation, the undecided shotmaking of recent weeks seem to
have fallen away like a snake’s skin, a decayed product of his last form cycle.
By close of
play he has a century, and by tea the next day has a double, though only after
being caught (you’ll never guess) off a no-ball. At the close he is 331 not
out, three short of Bradman and Taylor’s joint landmark, and with Hayden’s 380
in sight (publication preceded Lara’s 400), but his despised skipper Tom
Pritchard (not obviously based on any recent Aussie leader) declares overnight.
As it
happened, I read Adult Book during
this year’s Sydney Test, when Michael Clarke passed RE Foster’s 287, the individual
record score at the SCG for 108 years, a few years after Chris Brand had done
so in fiction. For a time as I read and watched they matched each other, run
for run. Clarke declared when he was 329 not out, two short of Brand’s mark.
Off the
field, Knox’s portrayal of life around the Australian Test team is less
convincing. It must, of course, be acknowledged that any author’s obligation to
present the world as it really is extends only as far as they themselves
determine it should. Knox has spent plenty of time in the world of
international cricket, but it would be disappointing if the reality closely
resembled Chris Brand’s world, summed up thus:
No matter how individually
talented, no matter how great they all think they are…the glue that holds them
together is the lowest common denominator. They’re boys.
The glue is
spread very thin. None of the Australian players appear to like or respect any
of the others. Off the field their main form of entertainment is solitary
surfing for internet porn, punctuated by trawling for groupies, wives and
girlfriends kept away. Only a fool would imagine that there is not a strong element
of truth about this, the Australian team consisting of rich, successful
twenty-something males as it does. But few of them will be quite this
one-dimensional and the majority will be more interesting and nicer people than
their fictional counterparts.
Mind you, none
of the spheres of life represented in Adult
Book would be delighted with their portrayal in it, particularly the
medical profession. It is not a book that makes it easy to sympathise with any
of its characters. Like a ground-out 40 on a seaming pitch it is to be admired for
its technical proficiency, but it is a relief to be able to turn to the
newspaper for diversion while it proceeds. O’Neill’s Netherland is more deserving of fiction’s token place on in the top
50, even though the cricket is more tangential to its story. 
