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croissantkatie) wrote2012-02-22 06:45 pm
Not!Fic: So, Everyone Plays Cricket
Title: So, Everyone Plays Cricket
Summary: Not!Fic about bandom people playing cricket.
Notes: Much thanks to
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bessyboo, knight_tracer and quintenttsy!
leish and can be found here.Gerard prefers Twenty20 because then they don’t have to wear cricket whites. They get to wear things with colour and stuff which represents them and their TEAM. Yeah, so maybe his bowling style is more suited to the long game but his temperament better suits the shorter versions of the game. Mikey’s the more patient one, happy to wait and watch and be ready for when the ball comes his way. He just goes into this zen like zone. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Frank. He’s an amazing wicket keeper, but rather over enthusiastic. He just needs to be a tad more careful and not break another finger. They really don’t want to have to get Sisky to stand in for him again. Sisky is incredibly enthusiastic but lacks things like experience. He normally brings on the drinks. Ray is a wicked fast bowler, although he can slow the pace down if necessary. Toro is not a one trick pony of the cricket world. People are always nagging him to cut his hair though, claiming things such as air resistance and how his helmet when he’s batting would be far more comfortable but Ray is not budging on this issue. His hair stays. He may be passionate about the game but that’s just pushing it too far. Ray always cites Ryan Sidebottom’s hair at times like that which inevitably lead to everyone else pointing out that Sidebottom was dropped from the English test side for six years. Ray doesn’t think that’s relevant though. And besides, it’s a valuable non-verbal communications tool for team. It’s stopped Frank from being given a warning by the umpire in the past after all.
Mikey and Ray make a pretty solid batting team. Now Ray’s not really a batsman, his primary weapon has always been his bowling. However, there’s something which happens when he’s at the crease with Mikey. They know exactly when to run, when to make a daring hit, when to let the ball pass. They don’t need to yell at each other to run. Ray would say his hair had something to do with it but that’s confined within his helmet. It’s partially Mikey’s incredibly expressive eyebrows and partly that they just know each other that well. Ray trusts Mikey almost explicitly, there’s never been a reason to doubt him, on or off the pitch. Mikey is a batsman, an absolutely incredible one. Not only can he really hit a shot, but he knows just how much power to put into it. He knows when to just jab out at the ball and when to really send it flying. His placement of shots is pretty amazing too. Whenever anyone compliments Ray’s batting, he always waves it off and hands the praise over to Mikey. He knows he’s only as good as he is because of Mikey. Ray really doesn’t mind that though.
Britain has Test Match Special, they have Cobra Commentaries. They’re really not all that alike. In fact, the only thing they have in common is a fondness for cake and the odd mention of cricket. Gabe really has no idea about cricket. He’s the kind of commentator who engages with people on a personal level. He’s the one who talks about the cake listeners sent in and how you can see someone’s laundry over to the right hand side of the commentary booth. The listeners love him. He adds vibrancy. Or at least that’s what he claims. Ryland actually knows a bit about the sport. Admittedly he doesn’t know much, but he knows more than Gabe which isn’t exactly difficult. He knows about the different types of bowlers and everything. He’s full of random facts which people seem to eat up. People even seem to like it when he puts on his English accent and talks about stats (which Nate gave him, Ryland knows nothing about any kind of maths, let alone cricket stats) and the history of the game. His alter ego is particularly fond of discussing the spirit of the game. Gabe just nods sagely and inserts the odd agreement here and there. Nate even understands how Duckworth Lewis works. Until that one test last year which got called off early for rain, both Gabe and Ryland thought that no one understood Duckworth Lewis. They’re both now convinced that Nate must have been through some kind of genetic mutation or something.
There was that unfortunate time when they teamed up with Nate, Alex (player nutrition) and Victoria (she is in charge of stuff. No one’s quite sure what stuff, but she is most definitely in charge of it) to try and get the team to change their kit. Gerard was all for expression through a neon kit but the officiating body apparently had issues with it. Gabe wasn’t sure why. The pink stripes on the twenty20 kit would have to do for now. And there were no regulations about what the commentators had to wear. No one could object to Gabe wearing the green shirt with the neon pink skinny tie. Well, people did object. There was just nothing they could do to make him change.
Popular opinion is that the entire ground staff is high the whole time. That or they really just held a special place in their hearts for grass (not the illegal stuff, the stuff which grew on the pitch). It was just a bit strange to hear someone wax lyrical about how to create the perfect wicket to the extent that Ryan did. Although he never seemed to check the weather forecast, which was frankly odd for a grounds man. Jon claimed that it was because Ryan had an intuition for this kind of thing. Everyone else knew that half the grass would have been dead last summer if it hadn’t been for Spencer watering it during that prolonged period of drought. Everyone considered Spencer the most level headed member of the grounds team. Well, everyone apart from those who knew that it was his decision to let Brendon operate the roller that one time. They were still missing some of the guttering from the pavilion. And that was before anyone mentioned the incident with the nets and the ball machine. Brian still flinched whenever anyone so much as mentioned the word nets.
Pete’s some kind of whirling dervish between the stumps. Mikey’s been working hard on their batting partnership to make sure that Pete calms down a bit and stops running whenever he hits the ball. However, Pete’s the player who captures people’s imaginations. He takes shots no one else would mainly because everyone else is sane. It pays off though. He’s got a pretty high average, it’s just when goes a bit wrong, it goes a lot wrong very quickly. Pete takes that hard and everyone’s trying to help but it doesn’t always go very well. He’s been being more honest about things lately though. There’s this big push going on about sportsmen and women with mental health problems talking about them to try and show that it’s something that happens to everything. Pete wasn’t able to open up to the same extent as Mikey or Gerard, but he felt like he’d done his bit. Marcus Trescothick had even come up to him and been supportive about things.
Andy, Patrick and Joe are the quieter members of the team. They’re not spectacular players, but they’re good and solid. Andy is an incredible night watchman, simply because no one can psych him out. Regardless of any mind games they try to play on him, it never works. He goes into his zone and nothing can get to him there. Not even being whacked round the head by Pete that one time. The pain hadn’t registered until they had come off the pitch for bad light. Brian had flipped his shit when he’d seen the blood and forced Andy to go to the ER. He’d only needed three stitches so it was hardly a big deal. People tend to forget about Joe and Patrick. People sometimes remember that, when Joe first started bowling, he’d always trip over his own feet. His technique has improved considerably since then but that’s all anyone seems to remember. When that happens, Joe doesn’t bring up that time he got a hat trick. He’s not all that fussed by what people think of him. It gets to Patrick sometimes though, although he tries not to let it bother him. Word on the street is that he’s only in first eleven to stop Pete from going crazy. Everyone in the side protests that but it’s an irritatingly persistent rumour. Patrick is damn fine batsman in his own right. Just because he scores the most runs when working in partnership with Pete just means they have a better understanding of how each other plays. And it’s frankly preposterous as Patrick got his only century whilst batting with Andy. No one ever talks about that though, but Patrick’s fine with that. His name’s on the honour’s board in the pavilion and that on its own is enough for him.
Sisky brings on the drinks. He’s young and inexperienced but so enthusiastic! He’s not even a member of the team officially. He works with Bill and Mike on the entertainment. But he loves it so much that no one really minds him bringing on the drinks. Well, so long as no one lets him hold a bat.
The problem though is funding. There’s simply not enough of it. Cricket is hardly a popular sport and there’s this image surrounding it. People don’t think they can get into the sport, that it’s dull and boring and only for posh people. Gerard fiercely disagrees on that point. Unfortunately for Brian though, Gerard’s impassioned speeches don’t bring in much money (although they do bring in some from an “anonymous benefactor” but Brian’s decided not to question that. He really doesn’t want to know what kind of person would donate money to them).
So Brian scratches his head and thinks things over to try and figure out how to engage with people. It comes to him, after a good hour staring blankly at his desk, that they way to go is Twenty20. It’s the hip and young version of cricket. So, they set up a bunch of twenty20 matches. Complete with cheerleaders and dancers and music and everything! Brian also hires Bob to help him out. Gerard had tried to get Bob to join the team before but Bob had flat out refused. He had claimed he just wasn’t a cricket person. Personally, Gerard disagreed. Everyone has it in them to be a cricket person! Bob helps Brian coordinate everything and helps deal with the many varieties of crazy which the team specialise in. So Bob is basically there to stop Brian from tearing his hair out and it works. Not just Brian’s hair remaining attached to his head, but also bringing more people in to watch the matches. It’s a miracle! Yes, William and the rest of the entertainment team are still incredibly high maintenance. Yes, their team still isn’t that good at cricket. But they’re getting better! The wicket is actually in pretty good condition (although Brian suspects that’s because Joe “borrowed” the grounds keeping staff’s stash). Brian kind of wants to collapse with relief. Frank offers to catch him if he falls over like a blushing maiden. Brian decides to punch Frank instead.
Now he just needs to stop Frank yelling “silly mid-off!” at inappropriate moments.
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Oh my God. Patrick's stumps. I had not made that connection. /o\ SO AWESOME xD
And he's totally Grant in my head too :D
AND THANK YOU DARLING.
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