Spinner (40 page)
This term has many different uses. It can refer to the batting and bowling area, a dismissal by a bowler, or the stumps.
An over in which the bowler has taken a wicket without a batsman scoring runs. When a bowler bowls a whole over with no runs being scored, it is said, rather jauntily, that he has bowled a maiden over, which is the desire of many a young cricketer.
Wrist spin is bowled by releasing the ball from the back of the hand, so that it passes over the little finger (causing spin). This imparts an anticlockwise rotation on the ball (from the bowler's perspective).
A bowling delivery that generally passes under the bat near to a batsman's toes. Presumably an invention claimed by a Yorkshireman.
www.action8cricket.com.
All of the characters depicted in this novel are fictitious, even the real ones. The novel is set at a time of my choosing traversing and conflating the late 1920s and early 1930s. If David were to do the things he does, he would likely have met some of the kinds of known and unknown folk constructed for this story. I researched the time, the war and the cricket, then used what suited me, changing what did not. As much is drawn from Australian fiction and film as from non-fiction sources. The history, like the cricket, is not to be fully trusted. I hope it feels real.
I would like to thank the people who read my early drafts and provided extremely important feedback. Thank you Michelle, Jill, Les, Samantha, Leonie, Callum and Jeff Z.
I'd also like to thank Driftwood Manuscripts for their invaluable reader service. Special thanks to my editor, Georgia Richter, for a wonderful working relationship, to the Fremantle Press team, and to the proofreader, Deb Fitzpatrick.
Curtin University allowed time during my final preparation for publishing this novel. I thank Curtin for this and for the place of creative arts within the humanities.
Lastly, to Dennis Lillee, Alan Border, Greg Chappell, Steve Waugh, Ian Botham, Dougie Walters, David Gower, Derrick Randall, Merv Hughes, Richie Benaud, the other West Aussies, the other Australians, the English, the Kiwis, the West Indians, the Indians, the South Africans, the Pakistanis and Sri Lankans. Even though I have never met any of them, I have derived great pleasure over many years following the strange game of Test cricket. And finally to Shane Warne and that ball he bowled to Mike Gatting. I think that was the moment when I started to daydream about a twelve year old boy, who ... well, what ifâ
Michael alludes to a number of literary works and makes up a few. However he also directly quotes from Shakespeare's
Macbeth, Delian Apollo,
Wilfred Owen's âStrange Meeting' and V.I. Lenin's lecture entitled âThe Tasks of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party in the Russian Revolution'. I have attempted, without success, to contact and ask permission of action8cricket for the adaptation of their online glossary of terms.