C (February)

C is for Cricket that, like the alphabet, we learned from early, a game in which one player defended his stumps from another player. School ovals echoed willow, gasped with what if. We graduated to aerial heroics of Test supermen, swotted through February the records for spin, fours, centuries. Some people called this Wisden. Our idols’ sunburn and Kookaburra-polished trousers were the pink bits on which Empire never set. D is for Disillusion when we learn, late, like it wasn’t obvious, cricket is a game in which one player defends his stumps from another player. Some people call this Wisdom.