Fantasy Bob overhears another conversation between those two old cricket lovers.
Sandy!
George.
I see you're out for your constitutional.
Aye. As approved by Nicola Sturgeon.
Jean not with you?
No, she's got her own lock-down exercise regime.
Really, what does she do?
Well - at 9 o'clock she's got the Joe Wicks, at 10 it's the Pilates, at 11 the Yoga, at 12 the Tai Chi...
...Uh-hu...
...then there's the Fat Burner, the Bum Shaper and the Ab Blaster...
...Oh...
...and afterwards Zumba, Belly-dance and HipHop.
That's a punishing schedule.
Aye, but she says she's putting the weight on.
Surely not?
I've tried to help her.
How?
I told her she should try the exercises, not just watch the videos.
That Joe Wicks has done well though. All my grandchildren do the Joe Wicks.
I haven't seen my grandchildren in ages.
You don't have any grandchildren.
That must be why.
I couldn't do the Joe Wicks.
Me neither. Not with my back.
What's wrong with your back?
Cricket did for it. Don't you remember? I had three slips.
You never bowled to three slips in your life.
No, I was batting. I tried to cart to long hop. It was that slow I missed it. Back foot slipped, trod on my stumps. Hands slipped, bat flew off, knocked the umpire unconscious.
And the third slip?
Disc. I was bent over for three weeks. Jean thought it was hilarious.
So no Joe Wicks.
No Joe Wicks.
It was Graeme Gooch.
Graeme Gooch?
Graeme Gooch - he was a fitness fanatic.
Was he?
Aye, when he became captain he had all the players doing exercises like there was no tomorrow.
They must have liked that.
Not the senior players. Gower got an aeroplane and buzzed the ground.
And there was no tomorrow for him then.
Remember when Gooch got 333?
Unforgettable. Remind me.
Lords 1990 against India. Then he got 123 in the second innings.
456 in one match.
Still a record. All down to hard work. It was a new ethic.
The Essex ethic. That's hard to say.
It seems impossible to pick up a paper now without seeing mention of Joe Wicks or Zoom conference calls, neither of which I had heard of 3 months ago. Now they are annoyingly ubiquitous. Gooch's treble 3 I do remember though - the speed and effortlessness of that effort were unmatched.
ReplyDeleteThe second innnings was even more rapid SR 108.
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