by Arthur Crabtree » Wed Aug 26, 2015 3:01 pm
There are moments in close, competitive series which remain intact in the ongoing sediment of the memory, such is the intensity of their formation; like fossils. There have been many in this series already, and there was another today. But first, some context.
Gilchrist was slogging the ball around the ground, for old times' sake. This Ashes has been remarkable for Gilly's failure to bark in the night time. The ball had stopped swinging, and the pitch was looking a bit flat. Gilchrist, everyone's nemesis, had just distributed Giles into the seats. Strauss had taken a fine sharp catch at gully, to dismiss Katich and end a 58 partnership with the batter-keeper. Freddie came on as he does when the ball has stopped swinging and times are hard. He bowled round the wicket to Gilly, and hit the pitch just short of a length. He got that bounce he gets, and the ball moved away half a width of the bat, and Gilchrist (Churchy?) sparred at it, a mistake. And the ball flew serenely into a vacant third slip region.
Whereupon a thrilling thing happened. Andrew Strauss threw himself into the space, full length, facing down, slightly tilted towards the action. He was just short, he was going to just miss. Good effort though. Immense reactions just to respond to a fast chance. But he seemed to get extra impetus from somewhere, the dive kept on going, and at the last, he was able to thrust his hand out further. Another, new extension, and at the end, a grasp. The ball stuck.
As he fell to the ground, the ball began to squeeze out his hand. In slo-mo, it looks like a stop motion film of a flower starting to emerge on a natural history programme. Crucially, if he'd had further to fall, he could have lost the ball. But he landed with it still gripped between a thumb and two fingers. He smothered the ball into his chest as he hit the ground. And then, everything stopped for one of those elastic seconds, and everyone on tv and at the pavilion end wondered if it had bounced out on impact with the grass.
But Strauss jumped up with the ball aloft. And was mobbed by his team mates. For once everyone on the field forgot about Freddie, and was transported into a kind of rapture by what they had witnessed, a disorienting reality. Maybe that kind of moment brings greater belief and makes the miraculous seem possible? I don't know, I just have a normal job.
Gilchrist, c Strauss, b Flintoff 27.
I always say that everybody's right.