A Word from AB

I’m declaring this Casual Friday at ‘Eye on the Ashes’, in order that I might share a personal story. Some readers acquainted with my book 'The Vincibles' (2002), a diary of a season at my club the Yarras, may recall our stalwart player AB. Anthony Burnell was the inaugural captain of our Fourth XI, and a better bloke at a cricket club there can seldom have been. Noone stayed later, sank more beers or rolled a bigger spliff; noone obtained more hilarity from committee and selection meetings, this being what they were mainly good for; noone was a better karaoke partner, our duet of ‘Submission’ by the Sex Pistols carrying off the Yarras’ most coveted honour six years ago. His dad Ron, and brothers Mick and Rich also played at the club; Rich is still the only teammate I have seen bat in reflecting shades.

Those who’ve read 'The Vincibles' will also know that AB died in May 2001 in an accident, driving the car he once said contained just enough room for a blonde and his cricket gear. He was 31. Few of our boys had experienced death before, and none of us were left unchanged. The back of the club cap is embroidered with ‘AB 1969-2001’. We still play our friends Sacred Heart CC in the annual AB Shield game. AB’s pads remain in the club kit, while his gloves have been handed down to our youngest player. It’s only a few weeks since Ron came to the launch at our clubrooms of a book I’ve written, and I signed copies for Mick and Rich, both of whom are now fathers themselves

AB and I had overlapping literary and musical tastes, and shared lots of books and records. There is a picture of us padded up waiting to bat, apparently oblivious to the game: AB has his nose buried in the essays of Bertrand Russell; I am reading a life of Shostakovich. He also enjoyed a colossal advantage in the round of musical clues at the Yarras trivia nights I hosted, and savoured no cricket achievement so much as one year identifying the opening riffs of ‘Television Screen’ by the Radiators from Space.

Nonetheless, it was with some shock that I received an email a few weeks ago from an old work colleague, who’d bought in a secondhand bookstore a copy bearing my name of ‘It Never Rains’: Peter Roebuck’s bittersweet diary of a county season, which I hold in high esteem. Its provenance was made more mysterious and tantalising by a note signed ‘AB’: could this, she wondered, be from the great Grumpmeister himself? Nothing so exalted. I had lent the book to Anthony and lost track of it, when I guess it was dispersed among his personal effects. When this was explained, she immediately offered me the book back.

So, after its roundabout journey, ‘It Never Rains’ was awaiting me on my return from Adelaide Oval, as was the note, tucked into the rueful chapter called ‘A Duck and a Swipe’, apparently composed just before I went to cover that year’s Ashes series for The Guardian: ‘Gids. Tell Roebuck I have the same trouble laying back to play forceful shots through point & cover, giving catches to the slips and gully. Have a great time mate. Expect to see in the Test side by the 3rd Test. AB.’ I can hear his droll humour, his confidential voice and his low chuckle; I am playing in his old team tomorrow, and feel how much I miss him.

I wonder what he’d make of this Ashes series. Actually I know. England, he would theorise, are not getting enough sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll: more of these were AB’s solution to most things. What a terrible loss - although, also, what a privilege to have known him.