It’s all Steve Smith’s fault

ANYONE who has read the rantings in this column over the years would realise its author is a cricket tragic.

I’m one of those who believe the position of Australian cricket team captain is far more important than that of Prime Minister of Australia.

After all, would leave Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten or Pauline Hanson to set a field in an Ashes Test? Not likely!

However, due to circumstances beyond my control I was left having a dislike for our Aussie captain Steve Smith.

As every year, I had attended the recent Brisbane Test at the ’Gabba with a group of the usual suspects.

Having been on extended leave which took in a Melbourne Cup cruise then a week on the Sunshine Coast with the shy and sensitive tax accountant and his wife, during which time I had over indulged, I thought it best to have an alcohol free day.

It was during the start of Steve Smith’s fantastic test innings that the usual suspects with whom I run announced it was time to visit the members’ bar.

Much to their dismay, I declined the offer and remained in the stand - now without three of my mates, I could stretch out and enjoy what was to be a great captain’s knock.

As I suspected, this freedom and extra leg room was to be short lived and about two hours later the trio returned, smelling of the liquor that had been consumed and more boisterous than is their usual practice.

As the tax accountant took up his seat immediately on my left, the lawyer plonked himself on my right.

Now these two are built to the proportions that a successful career in their chosen professions afford them. Suffice to say, each requires one and a half seats in grandstand seating that was designed on the butt size of the average jockey.

I was left leaning forward, almost choking on the wig of the woman in front of me, and being squeezed from either side by the aforementioned tax accountant and his partner in crime, the Toowoomba lawyer.

As a life-long loser, I have noted that I’m never in the situation that the people rubbing up against me in the train, bus or grandstand is never a woman but always some hairy lump of a bloke who has been on the turps.

Steve Smith past 50 runs though I couldn’t applaud, my hands desperately clutching the seat in front of me for fear of suddenly being thrust into the air by the pressure being exerted from either side.

Then it happened, and this was witnesses not just by those in the seats in the near vicinity, but by my brother and his mates under binoculars from the other side of the stadium.

First it was the lawyer who cuddled into me and fell asleep on my right shoulder, followed closely by the tax accountant who similarly crashed onto me from the other side.

Having two grown men leaning all over me - and snoring - was bad enough. But, due to the aforementioned imbibing more than a little drool dripped on me as well.

I kept praying for Steve Smith to get his ton in the knowledge that the crowd would rise as one to applaud, thereby freeing me, if only temporarily, from the dual molestation.

Steve did eventually past the 100 mark, upon which my “mates” stood to applaud. “Great innings”, they nodded while wiping the sleep from their eyes. “Real captain’s knock”.

Having spent the first 50 runs in the bar, then the second asleep, drooling on me, I’m not quite sure their critique was genuine, but there you go.