FANTASY CRICKET

THERE are days in winter when a memory comes to the brain, like a divine vision, and it is of standing in the outfield on a summer's evening, the grass warm and green beneath the feet, the sun radiant in a clear blue sky; with three overs to go, the visitors are 20 behind, but with a big hitter at the crease, and in the pavilion the sandwiches wait alongside the vats of Guinness. And on that winter's day, you swear, you will never ever miss one day's Tavernei's cricket when summer finally arrives and converts the bogland on Phoenix Park into the greensward of our beloved cricket pitch.

Taverners cricket is mainly played by the middle aged, using rules which make us the object of hearty contempt for the lithe youngsters who constitute the main body of Phoenix Cricket Club. What we have in common with those disgustingly fit creatures is that we will tolerate somewhat imperfect conditions - for the sake of a game.

The first game of last year, for example, was played early in May. Night had fallen and ft was snowing even as the game began. The opening batsmen batted using a combination of intuition and braille. Some fielders were able to keep track of what was happening with the aid of torches, while deep leg illuminated his part of the field using a cigarette lighter. The inadequacy of that arrangement was really brought home to him when he was hit by a snowplough.

Other problems became evident as the match progressed; night descended even more deeply and polar bears stopped to watch. Silly mid on's hips - brand new, the Mater private, and on VHI I'm happy to say - seized up in the cold. Nobody noticed in the dark, and his cries for help went unheard in the Arctic gale which made communications of any kind difficult. We had more pressing matters to attend to, such as establishing, to within a few yards, where the wicket actually was. Deep backward square maintained it was to his left, and 15 feet in front of him, when in fact he was in the middle of Mary Robinson's bathroom with the lights off.

The wicketkeeper, who is normally to be relied on in such matters, was adamant he was behind the wicket, with the umpire and the bowler dead ahead. Alas, the poor fellow was standing on the central reservation of the Naas dual carriageway, where I believe he is to this day, patiently crouching and waiting for that perfectly nicked ball to slam into his gloves.

In Taverners' cricket, everybody bowls, apart from the wicket keeper, regardless of whether or not he is on the Naas dual carriageway. That night the duties of bowling fell to me just as the moon slunk out of sight and complete darkness covered the Earth. I ascertained the location of the batsman by dead reckoning using snowdrifts as markers, and took my run up. It was a perfectly delivered ball, the kind one dreams about in January, and no doubt somebody, one day, will find it and return it to me.

The game proceeded to everybody's satisfaction without the ball - in Taverners' cricket it is often more of a hindrance than a help - and had we been able to see the strokeplay of the batsmen, we would no doubt have found it sparkling. As it was, it was just cold. And dark. And lonely, as we crouched about the outfield wondering what was going on, odd little cries announcing that beasts of the night had claimed mid off or square leg, with a few pathetic little bones at dawn being the only clue to what had befallen them.

Sometime during the hours which followed, gully was propositioned by one of the sexually active creatures who emerge in Phoenix Park at night, and in the loneliness and despair of an outfield in early May - we are all human, all vulnerable to life's little urges - he accepted. He is now expecting to hear the happy patter of fawn's hooves in the autumn. Third man vanished and has not been seen since.

Somewhere amidst the ennui and isolation of his position, deep long on became converted to Islamic fundamentalism of the Iranian variety, grew a beard and became an expert in airline schedules. Extra cover took up macrame, and is expected to represent Ireland in that sport in the next Olympics, though to play to his best, he needs to compete in the dark, aided and abetted by a hearty dose of frostbite.

SHORTLY after day break, the remaining umpire - advertisements and private detectives have so far failed to locate the whereabouts of his colleague decided to call it a tie and ordered a general return to the pavilion. It was not dissimilar to The Retreat from Kabul. A few shuddering creatures finally gathered around the stove at the bar, having fought through a blizzard to get there.

Inside, we compared injuries.

Deep backward square hardly complained at all about his recent amputations, done without anaesthetic and using the sharp end of a cricket stump, and he will no doubt look even better when his plastic replacement nose arrives. In the dark, you can't tell the difference, or so I'm told. Second slip had that odd, blue look one often sees when the coronary bypass is not performed in time, and deep extra cover could not be consoled over his wheelchair which had been crushed by a passing glacier.

Fine backward square was mourning his missing artificial leg, though in his place I would have been more worried about his guide dog Rufus, who had volunteered to play deep midwicket, from which position at around midnight he yelped a few dismal woofs of farewell to his beloved master, and then was heard from no more. (Fine backward square attended a barbecue in a certain ambassador's residence later in the summer and not a million miles from deep midwicket. He swears the ribs he ate there were Rufus's, but then what would he know? Lots of dogs go missing in a year.)

And we all agreed as the morning sun rose on the littered corpses across the Phoenix Park: thank God for summer and the cricket season.