Lez Before Wicket

Five balls left. Eight runs to win. And the ninth wicket’s just fallen.

I walk down the stairs from the pavilion and onto the field, passing Susan on the way in. She’s muttering furiously to herself, but takes a moment to glare at me. “Don’t you dare cock this up,” she hisses. “Take a bloody run somehow and give Jen the strike.” Slamming her bat on the ground for emphasis, she stalks off back to the pavilion.

The pitch looks very far away as I walk over the grass towards it. God, or the devil, knows I’m no batswoman – I can accurately be called a weasel (goes in after the rabbits, ha ha) – even at the best of times.

So going out last wicket, with the match, and more, at stake isn’t exactly calculated to fill me with confidence.

Jen shakes her head slightly as I walk past her, not saying anything. Jen doesn’t often say anything, but her gestures are eloquent. Right now she’s thinking that she’d rather have had literally anyone else at the other end. And I sympathise, I don’t want to be here either.

The wicket keeper, a pretty black girl whose name I haven’t caught, grins as I take guard. “Going to get out first ball, I’ll bet you a tenner.”

I block her out. I’ve had some practice in blocking out negative comments – practice stretching back the whole twenty two years of my life. A little sledging is nothing. Besides, my mouth is dry and my heart hammering as I watch the bowler swing her arm a couple of times before starting on her run up. I doubt I’d be able to say much even if I wanted.

At least there isn’t a crowd. Not that there ever is for women’s matches, but the turnout is even thinner than usual today, just a smattering of people with nothing better to do. We’re both visiting teams, so there isn’t even the usual contingent of family members and boyfriends. But, empty stands or not, this game is important. Everyone knows that after the disastrous couple of years the national side’s had, the ***********ors are planning on major changes for the coming series against India, not to mention the World Cup after that. A lot of places are going to open up on the team, and this is one of the tournaments they’ll be watching keenly.

I’ve done my bit with the ball, taken five for forty in my ten overs, without conceding a single extra. But their bowlers didn’t fail either. And so here we are.

Their captain has scented blood, and moves the field in closer. Two slips, silly mid on and off, and the wicket keeper right behind the stumps. I’m surrounded.

The bowler trots up to the bowling crease, the ball floats through the air towards me, and as it pitches at good length, I forget all my plans of how I’d handle it and swat clumsily at it cross batted. And, incredibly, feel it connect hard and heavy, right in the middle of the blade; it soars past silly mid-on’s frantic grab, bounces near the leg umpire, and begins rolling towards the ropes.

Jen is sprinting towards me, screaming for a run, but I am so astonished at actually hitting the ball that she’s halfway down the pitch before I start to move. Not that it matters; by the time I’m at the other end the ball has rolled over the boundary, defeating the fielder racing to stop it.

Four balls to go, four runs to win. I trudge back up the pitch, crossing Jen.

“Run faster, you stupid cow,” she mutters out of the corner of her mouth. “Don’t bloomin’ daydream.”

The wicket keeper grins again. “See, glad I am that you didn’t take the bet. But I’ll bet you that you get out this time!”

Their captain has realised that her field’s set too close, that if anything passes the close-in fielders it’s open ground all the way to the boundary. She pulls back the close-in fielders, so I’m not crowded in. So when the bowler sends down the next ball and I poke at it, the ball hitting the edge of my bat and lobbing towards gully, there’s nobody to snap up the easy catch.

And Jen and I manage to scramble across for a single, too.

Three balls to go, three runs to get.

The next ball is a monster. It rears up from good length to chest height. Jen somehow manages to raise her bat to block it, and it falls to the ground at her feet like a dead bird. The wicket keeper collects it and tosses it to the bowler. Two balls to go, three runs to get.

In the time before the bowler begins her run up, I take a quick look around at the pavilion. Everyone in the team is standing at the balcony, staring at us. Wonderful, no pressure at all, then.

“Bowl a no ball,” I whisper desperately under my breath. “Please bowl a no ball.”

No such luck, naturally. The bowler pitches outside the off stump, the ball cutting in, but Jen manages to knock it towards cover point. Even before the ball’s fairly cleared the pitch, she’s sprinting across, and I rush past her, touch my bat to the crease and turn, hoping we’ll be able to take another. No luck. The ball slaps into the wicket keeper’s glove.

“Getting a mite interesting, innit?” she laughs as she throws it back to the bowler.

One ball to go, two runs to get, and I’m the one who’s supposed to score them.

‘Interesting’ isn’t what I’d call it. Terrifying, maybe. Adrenaline-flooding, yes. Some other words along those lines. ‘Interesting’ doesn’t make the grade.

The other side’s captain and the bowler hold a conference, glancing at me every few words. They move the deep field around a bit and then she begins her bowling run.

The ball leaves her hand, floats towards me, and I’m already stepping forward to meet it, feel the shiver of the bat as I strike it, the ball rising over her head before bouncing towards long off, and Jen is already partway down the pitch when I take off running.

Time seems to slow down. My feet hitting the ground at every stride seem to take an eternity. In the distance I see the other side’s captain running after the ball, swooping as she runs to pick it up and turning to throw, the umpire moving out of the way to the side, Jen in my peripheral vision racing past me, the crease coming up, I’m already stretching my arm and the bat to touch it…

…and then a piece of dry earth spins away under my foot, and I’m slipping, falling on my hands and knees, crawling desperately to get my bat across the crease.

Too late. I don’t even need to look up. The clatter of ball on stumps tells me all I need to know.

We’ve lost. By one single bloody run.

____________________________

I’m sitting in a far corner of the bar room on the ground floor of the team hotel, nursing a violently coloured cocktail the name of which I don’t even remember; I’d pointed it out at random on the drinks menu. It tastes about the same as it looks. I’m hoping to be able to stay there all evening until it’s time for bed.

No luck there either, apparently. A shadow falls across the table.

An offensively cheerful voice: “Drowning your sorrows in drink, are you?”

I look up slowly. It’s the pretty black wicket keeper. She slips into the seat opposite me without asking. “I wouldn’t recommend it. The bloody things can always swim.”

I make a noncommittal noise. I don’t want to ask what she wants, but she answers as though I had, anyway.

“Saw you sitting here all alone from across the room. You were just radiating misery. Slagged you off, did they?”

“You have no idea,” I say.

“Ace, you can actually talk!” She grins that brilliant grin. “I thought you’d gone mute or something. So, they didn’t like it that you didn’t score one run? Well, the ten of them put together couldn’t score two hundred and fourteen, so why blame you?”

“It’s not just that…we’re on the verge of getting eliminated from the tournament. And once we’re out, there goes the chance of national ***********ion.”

“Oh, come on. You’ll win the next match, easy. Just keep bowling like you did today.” She pulls an exaggerated face. “I didn’t even see the ball with which you got me.”

“Uh…sorry about that.” I sit back and take a good look at her. In a T shirt and without her helmet she’s extraordinarily eye-catching. Her short hair clings to her scalp, emphasising the clean lines of her face; the tiny studs of her earrings only show off the elegant shapes of her ears, a thin silver chain hangs between the gentle swell of her breasts. I feel a faint stirring inside me, but push it down. This stunning girl could never be interested in me that way. “I might have hurt your chances for ***********ion.”

She scoffs. “Oh, naff off. Next you’ll tell me you should’ve only bowled full tosses at me so I could score a century. What the hell are you drinking?”

“I don’t know. I picked it out at random.”

She picks it up and takes a sip. “Good lord, it’s awful. Wait, I’ll get us beer.”

Before I can even answer that she doesn’t have to, she’s gone, and reappears in a minute with two tankards of foaming bitter. “Here.”

I take a sip. The taste of it rises with the bubbles into the back of my nose. I bury a sneeze. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t get your name.”

“No worries! I didn’t get yours. I’m Karizma Davis.”

“Charisma?”

“With a kay and a zed.” She spells it out, grinning. “Fancy, innit? And you are?”

“Zhang Do…” I begin automatically, then as automatically switch it around to Western name order. “Dongmei Zhang.”

“Ace. From China, are you?”

“Well, my mum is, from Shanghai. My dad was born in Hong Kong. They came here before they met and got married. I was born in this country.” I take a quick look at her, but see none of the guarded expression that comes over so many people’s faces when they hear my name and realise I’m not Korean or Japanese as they’d assumed. “They’re really very conservative in a lot of ways, so they insisted on giving my sister and me Chinese names.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” She swigs her beer. “Imagine being called Vicky or Penny or something Zhang. Horrible. So what does it mean?”

“Dongmei? Winter Plum Blossom.” I brace myself for the usual quick mocking smirk, but it doesn’t come.

“Now that’s a proper brilliant name, if I do say so. You should be proud of it.” She glances at my beer. “You aren’t drinking. Are you all right?”

I sigh. “It’s just that…you know, this whole thing is getting me down a bit. My parents aren’t exactly thrilled about me playing cricket. They want me to give up this waste of time, as they call it, and start helping out in the family business. The only way I can reply adequately is make my way into the national team. Then, hopefully, they’ll lay off the pressure. I am,” I proclaim, “really a terrible disappointment to them. My elder sister, now, she can’t do any wrong. And she’s already handling the accounts and all that, while I waste my time running around a field with a red leather ball, as my mum never ceases to remind me.”

Karizma – I run the name over in my mind – nods. “That’s hard cheese. But don’t worry, you’ll go places. Not just the India series, either. You’re going to the World Cup.”

Despite myself, I laugh. “The World Cup! That’s about as likely as my becoming the first girl on Mars.”

“Don’t run yourself down. Leave that to all the pillocks. They’re good at it and that’s all they’re good at.” I chuckle at that, and she laughs again. Her laugh is infectious. “What’s the family business, then?”

“They run a Chinese restaurant. The last thing I want to do is spend my days taking orders for Hakka noodles and wonton soup. Can you see me in a restaurant kitchen in an apron and hairnet, all red faced in the steam?”

She cocks her head like a terrier and looks at me. “I don’t know, that’s a pretty interesting image, really. Now come on and drink up so I can get us another round.”

When she returns, she hands me a beer and sits back. “Now tell me about yourself.”

“What about me?” I’m surprised.

“I mean, what do you like? Movies? Music? Your taste in books?”

I shrug. “I’m not really one for movies. Especially not romcoms or action movies. I can watch an occasional horror movie, just as long as it’s funny.”

“Ha! I love those. Especially when they try very hard to be scary and end up doing the opposite.” She raises her arms before her, lets her wrists droop, tilts her head and lets her tongue loll out. “Braaiiins!”

I laugh so hard that I snort beer up my nose.

We talk about books and music and things for a while, and cricket recedes, and we aren’t on opposite teams anymore, just two young women chatting in a hotel bar room.

“So it was tough for you growing up?” she asks, when we get around to talking about school. “I mean, you know…”

“Yes. You can imagine what people said during COVID, not to my face but so I could hear.” I shrug. “I’ve grown good at ignoring stuff like that, but it still hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and looks as though she really means it. Maybe she’s gone through some of the same things, as a black person. “My parents said they had it tough, too, years ago.”

“What do your parents do?”

“Mum’s a college professor in economics. Dad, well, Dad…” she begins to laugh.

“What?’

“He’s a sportscaster. He literally did the commentary on today’s match!”

I do a facepalm. “Oh god. How he must have laughed at me for falling like that, last ball.”

“Oh, he doesn’t do that kind of thing, unless if I fall. Then he has a right good chuckle.” She raises her beer. “Here’s to falling together!”

I raise mine and she knocks our tankards together. That is the first time I’ve done it. I’ve only seen it in the movies. “Shall we go have something to eat?” I ask. “I’m suddenly a little peckish.”

“Aye, totally. I could murder a dinner. Drink up and let’s get to the restaurant!”

It’s late when I go back upstairs to my room. I’m lucky that I don’t have a roommate, so I don’t have to worry about noise. I undress, brush my teeth, and am in bed in ten minutes.

Only then does it occur to me to wonder what she meant by saying it was an interesting image when I mentioned being red faced in an apron and hairnet in the kitchen steam.

____________________________

Early the next day we have net practice.

I’m bowling to Claire in the nets, sending down leg breaks and an occasional googly for her to catch. She’s our ‘keeper and not very good at recognising what I’m going to bowl from my wrist action. She’s missing or dropping a good quarter of what I bowl at her, and that’s though I’m not exactly feeling up to giving my best. Claire was one of the most vocal of those yelling at me for losing the match yesterday.

After twenty minutes she’s had enough and goes for a water break. I stretch and rub my back muscles, and swing my arms around to ease my shoulders. Then I see someone watching, who gives me a little wave when she sees I’ve noticed her.

It’s Karizma, of course. I walk over to her. “Hi. You’re playing tomorrow, aren’t you?”

She nods. “Yeh. And nets after you’re done. I hate nets.”

“How did you ever become a wicket keeper?” I’m genuinely curious. “Did you not ever want to be an all- rounder or bowler?”

She laughs easily. “Simple. When I started playing cricket back at school, the only slot left open on the team was for the wicket keeper. I could either be the ‘keeper or not play. I decided to be the ‘keeper.”

“And good at it,” I said. I remembered how yesterday she’d taken spectacular diving catches worthy of Adam Gilchrist or Mark Boucher. Out of the corner of my eye I see Claire glaring at me impatiently, waiting for another round of humiliation. “I’ve got to go. Duty calls.”

“I noticed.” She hesitates a moment. “Dongmei?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we meet again this evening? I’m a bit lonely.”

This dazzling girl, lonely? I can’t believe it. I swallow.

“Yes, of course,” I say, and the voice that emerges from my throat doesn’t sound like my own.

____________________________

“See,” Karizma says, putting her beer mug down on the table with what might be a mite excessive force, “I don’t make friends easily.”

“You don’t?” I shake my head, confused. “But you didn’t have any problem approaching me last night, so…”

She goes on as though I’ve not spoken. “You don’t make friends easily either, don’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Fuckin’ aye it is.” If she notices me wincing at the swear word, she doesn’t let on. “I noticed that last night right off, Dongmei. We’re the same kind. That’s why I came over to you, because I saw the signs.”

“Now that you put it that way…” I nod. “Are we friends?”

She sits back and regards me with a tinge of wariness in her eyes. “Do you not want us to be?”

“Hell, yes! Of course I want to be friends!” An unbidden flash of my schooldays appears to me; the odd girl whom nobody really wanted to be with, the last one to be picked to partner on projects, the one who by being good on the cricket field only made it worse for those who were nowhere near as proficient. “I just…” My mind drifts away, a raft on a sea of memories.

“Dongmei?” Karizma waves her hand in front of my face. “Are you still here with me?”

“Uh…” I nod. “Yep. I was just thinking that I never really had any friends.”

“What, none at all?”

“None at school, at least none that took. None outside school either. Not even in my family. My sister and I aren’t close.”

“I don’t have a sister,” she replies quietly. “Nor a brother either. I wonder what it would be like if I had any.”

“Not particularly nice if they’re Miss Perfection like Biyu.”

“That’s your sister?”

I nod glumly. “I’m not saying she’s bad. She’s quite nice to me, really, most of the time at least. It’s just that she can’t do any wrong in my parents’ eyes, you know? When she was in school she couldn’t fail an exam if she tried, she doesn’t ‘waste time’ playing games, she’s already helping manage the restaurant and I don’t even want to cook or waitress there, she…” I shake my head. “When I was growing up I kept wishing I was an only child. That’s horrible of me, I know.”

Karizma leans back, amused. “You didn’t take a pair of scissors and stab her in her sleep, I take it? There you are, now that just might have been horrible. Perhaps. Maybe. Depending on the situation.”

There are things I can’t tell her, of course, so her joke doesn’t cheer me up. I draw a deep breath, proud of how calm I’m managing to keep my voice. “Anyway. So I don’t have friends and was a bit, uh, taken aback when you all but said that we are friends.”

She doesn’t say anything for nearly a full minute, and then leans across the table and takes my hand between hers. “Dongmei Zhang.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Hmmm?”

“I promise to be your friend, if you’ll have me as one.”

I swallow the lump that forms in my throat, and try to keep my voice light and carefree. “Absolutely,” I say. “You can be my friend for as long as you want to be.”

____________________________

The next day we aren’t playing, and the team’s supposed to go on a trip somewhere, a team building exercise, but I beg off, and nobody tries to persuade me. Instead, since Karizma’s playing, I go back to the stadium.

“Hey, you.” She grins and waves as soon as she sees me climbing the steps to the pavilion. “Come to cheer the other gang on?”

“Of course. I hope they wipe the pitch with you.” Unthinkingly, without knowing that I was going to do it before I did it, I give her a hug, and immediately try to break away, thinking it’s too much. Instead, she wraps her arms around me and pulls me close.

“I’m glad to see you,” she whispers in my ear. “I’m a bit bricked about today.”

“Why? You’re going to win.”

“Are we? They’re a tough lot. Defending champions and all.”

“You’re still going to win,” I say, and realise that I’m not just trying to cheer her up. “And, anyway. I’ll be here cheering you on.”

“That’s what I meant,” she replies. “With you here I’ve something to play for.”

“Oh, give over.” My face heats up with my furious blushing. “You’ll be in the World Cup team next year, yourself.”

“We both will, then.” She grins, and swats my shoulder. “Now sit here and grow moss. I’ve got to go get to the pre match pep talk and that.”

She gets back just as I’ve managed to find a seat with a good view. I’ve seen her teammates throw curious glances at me but nobody has yet come over and ordered me out of the pavilion. She plonks herself down next to me. “Huh well. We lost the toss, so I can sit here while we bat.”

She looks less than bothered at the prospect, so I go on. “That’s great, get your rest in before their innings. So, tell me something.”

“Yeh?”

“You aren’t playing cricket full time, obviously. So, what do you do the rest of the time?”

She laughs. “I’m a postgraduate student of mathematics. My thesis is on Boolean algebra. Not the stereotype of black females, is it?”

For a moment I can’t speak with astonishment. “Uck. I can’t even say what Boolean algebra is when it’s at home. If I said I was impressed, would you think I was taking the mickey?”

Karizma turns to me with total seriousness in her eyes. “From some people, yes, but not from you. Can I ask you something in return?”

I shrug. “Ask.”

“What made you take up cricket?”

I take a moment to compose my thoughts. “When I was at school, and being compared to Biyu in everything by my parents, the only thing I wanted was to be not like her. Since she didn’t play games, I decided I’d start playing. But I’ve always been rubbish at all the sports we Chinese are supposed to be good at…” I gestured. “You know, badminton, or table tennis, or any individual sport, really. So it was between cricket and hockey, and I didn’t like hockey. I just decided to volunteer to be picked for a class game.” I still remember how I was only reluctantly chosen to make up the full eleven for the second team because there was literally nobody else interested. “It’s not as though I’d no idea how to play, of course. I’d bowled a bit by myself, but I’d never actually played in a team before.” I rubbed my face, remembering. “I was just supposed to make up the numbers, not actually do anything. But our side was being hit all over the place, so I was given the ball just so the other bowlers could take a break from being belted all over the field.”

“Ah. And you discovered you were good at it.”

I nod. “I discovered I was good at it.” Not that it won me any friends, but it did mean I started getting picked as one of the first choices for class games, and, then, eventually, for the school. “And so…that’s how.”

“Brill. So what do you do when you aren’t playing? I mean, since you don’t help out at the restaurant.”

I chuckle. “Website and graphic design, some basic animation. I sit at my computer and do things for people I’ll never meet. At least it pays my rent and living costs.”

“You don’t live with your parents, do you, I suppose not.” She nods understandingly. “Where do you live?”

“I have a bedsit. It isn’t much but then it’s not as though I ever have any visitors.”

A clatter of stumps and a cheer from the field. Their first wicket’s fallen.

“Bugger,” Karizma sighs. “I’ll have to go get my pads on. Can’t tell when this bunch will begin collapsing like a landslide.” She gets wearily to her feet. “We’re on for tonight, aren’t we?”

“If I say we are, will that give you incentive to win?”

She grins that brilliant grin. “Totally.”

“Then,” I say, “we are on for tonight. Now go get them.”

____________________________

“Whoo.” Karizma flops down opposite me. “I’m knackered.”

“But you won, so that’s all in a good cause.” I’ve already got beer ready for her. “Through to the semifinals already, just look at you. And we’re going to get rolled over tomorrow.”

“No you won’t.” She sighs contentedly and puts her mug down. “I needed that. No, you plonker, you’re going to win, and you know why? Because I’m going to be there screaming my throat out for you.”

I feel myself blushing scarlet. That’s the first time anyone’s ever told me that they’d cheer for me. “Kazzie.”

“Yeh?”

“Suppose we lose tomorrow, all the same. We’ll be eliminated. I’ll be going home.” I look up at her, trying not to show the desperation in my eyes. “Will we keep in touch after?”

She blinks at me as though this was the most ridiculous question she’s ever been asked. “Of bloomin’ course we will. Why did you ever imagine otherwise?”

I swallow, feeling embarrassed. “I don’t know. I’m just stupid. And a little bit insecure.”

“You don’t need to be. I said I’d be your friend, didn’t I?”

I take a deep, shuddering breath. I feel like some underground creature that’s been tunnelling its way up through the earth and suddenly realised that there was open air and blue sky up above, only then to be faced with the threat of a boulder being rolled over it to block out that air and sky again.

“I know,” I say, looking at my hands, fingers twisted around each other, on the table before us. “It’s just that I’m not used to people making promises to me, let alone keeping them.”

“You aren’t bloody well getting rid of me, I can tell you.” She glances over my shoulder. “Oh, look, her nibs just came in.”

I turn. It’s the star player of the tournament, Sally, captain of the defending champions, face like a movie star, built like a boxer, lovely Sally, darling of the photographers, leave us alone, Sally, go away now. She looks across the room at us, her upper lip curls, and she comes over. Oh no.

“Well, well,” she says, hand on hip, head thrust forward aggressively, “fancy seeing the two of you together. Plotting to throw matches, are you?”

We just stare at her. I’m yet to play against her, our teams are due to play tomorrow, but Kazzie caught her behind today for three, and she’s shirty. Apparently I’m to be collateral damage.

“Well?” she demands. “Cat got your tongue?”

Kazzie and I exchange glances. “Let’s go have dinner,” I say.

“Yeh,” she agrees. “This room suddenly got a bit…stuffy. Can’t clock why.”

Sally glares after us as we leave. I throw a glance over my shoulder and think I can see the steam coming out of her ears.

“She’ll try and hit you for six first ball you bowl to her tomorrow,” Kazzie says. “You should get her stumped, easy.”

“As long as Claire doesn’t muck it up,” I reply moodily, “but she probably will.”

It’s only when I’m in bed later that I realise I’ve started thinking of Karizma as “Kazzie”, and calling her that, too. When did that happen?

____________________________

I wake to a WhatsApp message from her. “Remember I’ll be watching and cheering.”

“Won’t forget,” I reply, and then add, “thank you.”

She replies with a hearts-eye emoji. It’s nothing, but it still sends a thrill through me.

Get a grip, I tell myself. She’s a friend. A friend. She isn’t and won’t be interested in you…that way. Don’t act like a little child. You have a game to play.

At which she’ll be watching and cheering for you, another traitor part of my mind informs me. For you, specifically. What do you suppose that means?

I don’t know.

And there’s nobody I can ask.

I sigh and clamber out of bed. I’ve not even brushed my teeth yet, and I’m already confused. Great start to the day.

An hour later we’re at the stadium and Sally gives me a death glare from across the pavilion. What did I ever do to her…yet?

Susan is lecturing us about our strategy, as though we didn’t have a meeting about this last night already. I’ve already decided to ignore everything she’s telling us. If she knew what she was talking about we wouldn’t be on the verge of being dumped out of the damned tournament, would we?

We win the toss and, not surprisingly, send them in to bat. And so it begins.

By the time I come in to bowl, we’re already in trouble. Twenty overs in, they’re 115 for 3 and Sally looks all set to score a century. She’s at the non-striker’s end but gives me another glare while I’m marking out my run-up. What, exactly, is wrong with this woman? The fact that I’m a friend of Kazzie’s? So what? It’s not as though…

A sudden thought makes me pause. Is Sally mad at me because she wants Kazzie for herself? Does she think Kazzie and I are together, I mean, as an item? Can this even be possible?

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. Don’t think about irrelevant rubbish, I tell myself. You’ve got a game to play. A game that, as it looks like, is already threatening to get out of our clutches.

So I focus on what has to be done, go to the top of my (brief) run up, and trundle in to bowl.

I’m a leg spinner. It isn’t something I chose deliberately, just something I discovered I could do better than anything else I tried on the cricket field. I’m no Shauna Warne, but at least I can – usually – turn the ball a few degrees, and I can – usually – pitch it roughly where I want it to.

Is that good enough? It’ll have to be.

Gloria is facing me, a fierce redhead who has already played for the country but got dropped and is desperate to claw her place back. The first ball I send down, she blocks, but the second she deflects to mid-on for a single. And that leaves Sally facing me.

I’ve already had a word to Claire in the morning about Sally all but certainly going to try to belt me over the top first ball, and warned her to stay ready for a stumping opportunity, but looking at her now, I doubt she even remembers any of that. Ah, hell, I think, as I come in to bowl, if she misses, at least it won’t be my fault, and may the ***********ors remember that.

Oh yes. Sally steps out of the crease as soon as the ball leaves my hand, out to reach it on the full toss and knock it over the fence. Too clever by half, my dear, I’ve pitched it short, and the ball breaks away from her questing bat, flashes past the wicket…and speeds by Claire’s fumbling glove, and rolls on to the third man boundary for four byes.

Fuck, I think, bloody fucking fuck, as Kazzie would say.

As Jen is fetching the ball back from under the sight screen, I call on all my willpower to not say anything to Claire, looking away from her so as to control my temper. My eyes go to the pavilion, where a dark-skinned figure in a red T shirt is standing at the balcony, her hands held to her mouth. I tell myself I can hear her cheering from all this way, and feel a little better.

Things don’t get that much better. I do finally get rid of both Gloria and Sally, but not until they’ve added another thirty runs to their partnership. Then their side has a mini-collapse to Pashtana’s left-arm swing bowling; we’re lucky that this girl managed to get out of Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover and come here. And then I get to come on again and roll up the tail with not too much trouble at all.

It’s a steep ask, but not undoable, as long as our batting doesn’t collapse to the point that I have to bat, of course. But for Claire’s incompetence it would’ve been a lot easier.

When we go in for the lunch break, Kazzie hugs me. “You were great!”

I snort. “That makes no difference if we lose.” But every nerve synapse in my body is tingling at her touch. “Are you sure you want to spend the day here shouting at me?”

“Do you doubt it, you nutter?” She reaches up to pat my head. “What would I rather do than cheer for my best friend?”

Her best friend; the words strike me harder than I thought any could have. This incredibly beautiful, talented girl thinks I’m her best friend. My eyes fill with involuntary tears.

“Petals?” she asks. “Are you OK?”

“What?” I blink, tears forgotten. “What did you call me?”

She bites her lip and looks away for a moment. “That’s how I think of you,” she replies eventually. “You know, Winter Plum Blossom, so, flower, so, Petals. It’s a natural progression. Or,” she glances at me quickly, “don’t you like the nickname?”

I realise I’ve been staring at her open mouthed. “No, no,” I manage. “I mean, I love it. I love that you thought enough of me to…” I bite my lip to stop babbling. My face is hot to the roots of my hair. “Please keep calling me that.”

“That’s ace.” She lets out a breath. “I wouldn’t have wanted to call you Ding-Dong or something like.”

“Oh, please, no.” I shudder. “Because I’m tall, some idiot back in school began calling me Long Dong. Stop laughing!”

“I’m…sorry…” she’s still giggling. “You should’ve seen your mug when you said that!”

I push her, she pushes me back, and we roughhouse for a minute, until I can stop being afraid that her nickname for me wasn’t making me go weak at the knees (and wet between the thighs, but of course she doesn’t know that and never will).