The 3 Mistakes of My Life Read online

  ‘What’s burl?’ I asked him.

  ‘Aussie slang, mate,’ Philip laughed. ‘It means give it a try.’

  Ish offered to be the wicket keeper, but Fred told him to stay at the slip instead. Ali’s bowling was no match for these state level players. Roger slammed the ball towards the boundary several times. Once the ball came between Philip and me, and we had a tough time catching it.

  ‘Rattle your dags, mate,’ another fielder shouted at me. No one had to translate ‘hurry up’ to me.

  I threw the ball back. What was I doing in the middle of this Australian ground?

  As the day progressed, so did my Aussie vocabulary. ‘Onya’ was short for ‘good on you’, which meant well done. An easy ball was a ‘piece of piss’, while a good one ‘packed a wallop’. The mosquitoes were ‘mozzies’, and soft drinks ‘coldies’. When I took a loo break, Philip broke into some more slang. ‘You got to siphon the python, is it?’

  It started to get dark.

  ‘Pack-up time,’ announced Fred though Ali hadn’t batted yet.

  Fred raised his eyebrows at a glum Ish in the locker room.

  ‘I am fine,’ said Ish. Omi and Ali were taking a walk outside the club.

  ‘Fair dinkum?’

  Ish looked up from his wooden stool.

  ‘He is asking if you are telling the truth,’ I showed off my newfound linguistic skills.

  ‘When is practice tomorrow, Fred, in English if you can,’ Ish said.

  ‘You a whinger?’ Fred said.

  ‘Whinge means…,’ I said as Ish interrupted me.

  ‘I know what whinge means, can someone please explain the point of calling a batsman from thousands of miles away and not making him bat?’

  Fred smiled, ‘Oh, you wanted your little discovery to bat. What for? So he can hit a few sixes. You want the kid to be a show-off from day one?’

  ‘That’s not what I…’

  ‘Mate, I see a lot of talent. Every AIS scholarship kid has tickets on himself. If I don’t break their pride, they will stay hoons for the rest of their life. Sportsmen aren’t movie stars, mate. Even though your country treats them like that.’

  ‘But Fred…’

  ‘You Indians have good talent, but the training – trust me on that mate.’

  ‘We are only here for a week,’ Ish sounded helpless.

  ‘I’ll make the week productive. But today’s lesson was important. If he isn’t humble, he won’t last long,’ Fred said, then looked at his watch. ‘Promised the missus some time. I’m off like a bride’s nightie.’

  ‘Cheers!’ everyone cried. We clanged our dark brown bottles of XXXX beer, also known as ‘fourex’ stubbies.

  ‘Hi!’ our server Hazel, too hot to be a waitress, hugged Fred.

  ‘Oooh…,’ Fred’s students egged him on after she left.

  ‘No way, mate. The missus won’t tolerate me making eyes at anyone else,’ Fred said. ‘But you guys are single. You must have pretty girls all over you in India.’

  Everyone looked at us.

  ‘We don’t have girlfriends,’ Omi said.

  ‘Why not? Indian women are hot,’ said Michael, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Too busy with work,’ I said.

  ‘Busy? Never heard a bloke too busy to root, mate,’ Roger said.

  Everyone laughed. Root meant, well, whatever.

  ‘Check those honeys out,’ Michael said as four girls walked in.

  ‘The one in brown, she’s ain’t bad,’ Michael said. ‘NCR 5.’

  ‘NCR 10,’ Roger said.

  ‘And the blue one?’ Philip said.

  ‘She’s NCR 0. Bring it on, man,’ Roger said. Everyone laughed.

  ‘What’s NCR?’ I asked as there was a whiff of maths in the air.

  ‘NCR is Number of Cans Required. The amount of beer you need to drink to want to have sex with a girl,’ Fred said.

  ‘Michael dated an ugly bitch once. He admits it, NCR 40,’ Roger said. Everyone roared with laughter.

  ‘Here you go, hungry boys,’ Hazel said in a flirtatious tone as she passed the plates.

  The Australians mainly ate meat dishes. We had stuck to a pizza as it was the only recognisable choice.

  ‘You got to do more protein,’ Michael said, his biceps flexing as he ate.

  Omi said, ‘I drink two litres of milk everyday.’

  Ish sat next to Fred. I could not hear their conversation. However, I saw Ish’s frequent nods. I left the Aussie rooting stories and moved to Ish.

  ‘If you’re the bowler and you’ve got the ball in your hand, you’re controlling the game. You’ve got to make sure the batsman knows who’s the boss,’ Fred was saying. ‘Same for Ali. He doesn’t just need to hit shots, he needs to show the other team who is the boss.’

  ‘Right,’ Ish said.

  ‘My players will eventually figure out new ways to bowl to Ali. A determined mind can counter a gift. A champion has both.’

  Ish nodded.

  ‘Hi Govind!’ Fred had spotted me. ‘Don’t want rooting tips? We are just doing boring coach talk.’

  Ish’s chest swelled with pride as Fred had called him equal in role.

  I remembered something. ‘You mentioned a scholarship yesterday. What’s that? In fact, how does the whole sports thing work in Australia.’

  ‘You want to know why Australia always wins?’

  ‘It doesn’t always win,’ Ish said.

  ‘Not always, thank goodness. We love to dominate opponents, but also love a fight. When there’s a challenge, it brings out the best.’

  ‘Yeah, even if not every time, Australia does win a lot. Every Olympics, there is pile of medals for Australia. In cricket, the domination continues. How come, Fred?’ I said.

  ‘Plenty of reasons, mate. But it wasn’t always like this.’ Fred sipped his sparkling water. ‘In fact, in the 1976 Olympic games in Montreal, Australia didn’t win a single medal.’

  ‘But you guys did well last year,’ Ish said.

  ‘Yes, in Sydney 2000. Australia won 56 medals, only after USA, Russia and China. All these countries have ten times as many people.’ He paused. ‘Aussies saw the Montreal fiasco as a national shame. So the government set up the Australian Institute of Sports or the AIS and initiated the world’s best scholarship programme.’

  Fred finished his glass of water and continued:

  ‘And today the AIS has hundreds of staff – coaches, doctors and physios. They get two hundred million dollars of funding and have excellent facilities. And at the heart of it all, they offer seven hundred scholarships a year.’ Fred pushed the spaghetti plate towards me.

  I listened as I struggled with the ribbon-like pasta. I calculated how seven hundred scholarships for twenty million people would equate to for India. That was the equivalent of thirty-five thousand sports scholarships a year for India to match the ratio.

  ‘What’s the scholarship? Money?’ Ish wanted to know.

  ‘Not just money, mate. It is full on. Expert coaching, accommodation, travel to tournaments, sports science, medicine – you name it. And the best part is to be part of that community, where everyone has a singular commitment to their sport. I can’t describe that feeling,’ Fred said, as his eyes lit up.

  ‘I know the feeling,’ Ish said. Even though Ish’s eyes aren’t blue, they shone as bright.

  The waiters cleared our plates as we finished our food.

  ‘Any famous players from this scholarship programme?’

  ‘Heaps. Michael Bevan, Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds, Shane Warne…’

  ‘What are you talking about? These are all cricketing legends,’ Ish said.

  ‘Legends – that’s a good word,’ Fred laughed. ‘Hope I get there someday.’

  ‘You have a scholarship, too?’ I said.

  Fred nodded.

  ‘You are already a legend, Fred,’ Ish said.

  ‘Nah, I’m starting out. And let me tell you boys, the w