Doing My Bit Chapter 7 - An SUCC Captain

DOING MY BIT

Chapter 7 – An SUCC Captain

The Sydney University Cricket Club (SUCC) is a Club steeped in tradition and history in the Sydney Grade Cricket Competition, and to be asked to captain one of their teams was a great honour, or at least at the time it was. 

The light on the oval has a way of flattening everything.

In the early Autumn finals time, the mid-afternoon sun, hard and unrelenting, sits just above the sightscreen and refuses to move. It turns grass into glare and men into silhouettes, reducing effort to outline. From a distance the pitch looks harmless, almost polite in its stillness, a pale strip that offers nothing away. Up close it hums with indifference. A road, they call it. No seam, no crack, no whisper of assistance. Just a surface that asks a quiet question about what remains when none of your tools should work.

Standing at mid-off, cap pulled low, the smell of cut grass mixes with the faint tang of linseed oil from the bats. The rhythm is familiar, almost comforting in its repetition. Hands clap, the ball lands in palms, voices murmur in that half-hopeful, half-performative way fielders use to keep belief alive. The scoreboard ticks, then begins to move with more intent, then faster still, until it seems to take on a life of its own.

The team has made the semi finals and this was our swansong for the season. Two hundred arrives without ceremony. Three follows not long after.

There had been a version of this week where things made sense, where the team assembled with purpose and balance, where the small pieces aligned into something that could be shaped. That version had been interrupted early, quietly, in a conversation that carried the authority of structure rather than the weight of outcome. The explanation had been delivered cleanly, almost clinically, framed in the language of the Club’s best interests. It had not raised its voice, and that was part of its effectiveness.

The bowler who could have bent this surface into something resembling pressure had been moved. Elevated, on paper. Reassigned to a higher grade, to a finals campaign that carried its own logic. The decision made sense within the architecture of the Club. It simply did not make sense here, on this ground, in this moment.

What lingered was not the removal itself, but what followed. The bowler was not used. Not deployed in the way that might have justified the disruption. He existed somewhere in that other match as potential, unrealised, while this one unfolded without its only real point of leverage.

The numbers continued their steady climb.

Four hundred came into view, not with a rush but with the slow inevitability of something that had long since been set in motion. The bowlers began to glance inward before returning to their marks. No words were needed to understand what was being asked. The field shifted, then shifted again. Angles were tried, lengths adjusted, plans formed and discarded in the space of an over.

Eleven players. Ten overs each.

It stopped being about strategy somewhere along the way and became something closer to stewardship. A sharing of burden that might not change the result but could at least distribute its weight. The ball softened, the edges of its seam worn down until it felt more suggestion than substance. The silence between deliveries lengthened, not dramatically, but enough to be noticed.

There was a moment, somewhere between four hundred and five, where the decision was made not out loud but in action. The ball was taken, not because it guaranteed anything different, but because leaving it with others felt like an abdication. Length tightened, line sharpened, the kind of control that belonged to a higher level imposed itself on a game that was slipping beyond structure.

It worked, briefly. A wicket fell, edged and taken, more relief than triumph. For a moment the field lifted, voices returned, belief flickered. But the scoreboard did not care for moments. It resumed its quiet accumulation.

Six hundred did not arrive with drama. It settled in, almost matter-of-fact, as if this had always been its destination. The sound of bat meeting ball became mechanical, predictable in its repetition. The field spread wider, chasing containment that refused to be found. Effort remained, but its edge dulled.

Around the ground, the younger players moved with that blend of determination and uncertainty that comes from being asked to operate beyond understanding. They looked for cues, for signals that something could be done differently. There is a cost to that kind of looking. It creates an expectation that the one setting the field, rotating the bowlers, making the calls, will also carry the solution.

In stepping in, something subtle shifts. What begins as leadership by example becomes substitution. The instinct to absorb, to fix, to carry, edges into territory where others are no longer required to confront the problem themselves. It feels like service. It often looks like competence. It leaves less space for growth.

That tension does not belong only to cricket. It echoes elsewhere, in quieter rooms, across desks where numbers replace runs and decisions carry different consequences. The expectation to know, to guide, to reassure, builds in the same way. Clients lean in, trusting that the answers will be there, that uncertainty can be absorbed and translated into clarity. It is a form of giving that rarely announces itself as such, but its cost accumulates all the same.

The gauge sits beneath it all, unseen but felt. It measures not effort, but willingness to continue giving when the return diminishes. Mercy, in that context, is not softness. It is endurance. It is the decision to keep offering when stepping back might be the more rational choice.

The innings closes eventually, though it feels as if it has been over for some time before the final ball is bowled. There is no collapse, no sudden reclaiming of control. Just an end point reached after a long, steady erosion.

In the rooms, the air is cooler, the noise contained. Conversations hover at the surface, never quite settling into anything meaningful. The result is acknowledged without being dissected. There are no raised voices, no overt frustration. The system has produced an outcome, and in some quiet way, that is accepted.

The presence of those who shaped the week lingers without needing to assert itself. There is no apology, no explanation offered beyond what has already been said. The decision stands as part of a broader logic, one that prioritises progression, structure, the greater good of the Club.

It is difficult to hold anger cleanly in that space. The rationale is not without merit. That is what complicates it. The misalignment is not born of malice, but of differing perspectives on what matters, and when.

The season didn’t begin with that oppressive stillness of a flat pitch under siege. It began in rooms that smell faintly of polish and old timber, in conversations that carry more optimism than structure. The request for a captain is not framed as a burden. It arrives as recognition, as a natural progression for someone who has been part of something successful, something that has already tasted the satisfaction of doing things right. There is an assumption built into it, quiet but firm, that what has worked can be carried forward, that continuity is something that can be chosen rather than fought for.

It feels right to say yes. Not because the role is needed, but because it seems deserved. The memory of previous seasons sits close to the surface, two premierships not as distant achievements but as living proof of what alignment looks like when it is allowed to settle. There is an energy that comes with that memory, a belief that the foundation has already been laid and that this next step is simply a matter of extending it.

What becomes apparent early, almost before the first ball of the season is bowled, is that continuity is not a given in this environment. University cricket carries with it a rhythm that is not dictated by fixtures alone. Holidays fracture teams. Players leave for home, or for travel, or for commitments that sit outside the game entirely. Availability becomes fluid, names on a team sheet shifting from week to week in ways that make planning feel more like improvisation.

The fight is not against the opposition at that stage. It is against absence.

Every Thursday selection becomes a negotiation, a quiet attempt to hold together something that wants to disperse. Familiar names disappear and reappear without warning. Roles that should be defined remain tentative. Partnerships are built in fragments, rarely given the time to settle into anything resembling understanding. The idea of the same eleven walking onto the field week after week becomes less a strategy and more an aspiration that hovers just out of reach.

There is a cost to that instability that does not show immediately in results. Early in the season, energy compensates. Enthusiasm fills gaps that structure would normally occupy. Wins come, some of them hard-earned, others carried on the back of moments where individual effort bridges what collective cohesion cannot yet provide.

Those moments begin to accumulate. Runs scored when the situation demands it, spells of bowling that shift momentum, performances that anchor games that might otherwise drift. There is satisfaction in that, a sense that influence can still be exerted even when the broader picture remains unsettled. The record that builds quietly in the background, an all-round performance that stands above what the grade might typically expect, becomes part of that narrative.

On paper, it reads as dominance.

But the paper does not capture the conditions in which those numbers are produced. It does not record the Thursday night uncertainty, the late changes, the reshuffling of positions to accommodate whoever happens to be available. It does not show the conversations that try to instil clarity where none naturally exists, or the repeated attempts to create familiarity in a group that is constantly being reassembled.

The wins, when they come, and we won enough to make the finals during the year, carry a slightly different texture. They are not the product of a settled system working as intended. They are the result of adaptation, of stepping in where gaps appear, of taking ownership of moments that might otherwise slip. There is pride in that, but it is a solitary kind of pride, one that sits alongside a quieter recognition that something is missing.

Leadership, in that space, begins to change shape. It moves away from guiding a collective and towards compensating for its absence. The instinct to ensure that standards are maintained becomes a personal responsibility rather than a shared one. Each performance becomes an opportunity to stabilise, to provide the consistency that the environment itself refuses to offer.

It works, in a sense. The season progresses. Results accumulate. A finals position is secured, which on the surface suggests that the approach has been validated. The expectation that had been formed at the beginning, shaped by the memory of premierships and the belief in what could be repeated, remains intact, at least outwardly.

Yet beneath that, there is a growing tension. The reliance on individual contribution begins to overshadow the development of anything resembling a cohesive unit. The players who come and go experience the season in fragments. The chance to build understanding, to learn from failure, to grow within a structure, is diluted by the constant movement.

When pressure builds, the response becomes predictable. Step in. Take responsibility. Control what can be controlled.

It ensures that the team competes. It delivers results that keep the season alive. It also creates a dynamic where others are not required to carry the same weight. The opportunity for them to fail, to adjust, to improve within the safety of a shared burden, is reduced.

By the time the season reaches its conclusion, the shape of it feels different to how it had been imagined. The semi-final appearance sits there, a marker of achievement that suggests a level of success. It does not reflect the imbalance that had existed throughout, the effort required to maintain position rather than build upon it.

There is no sense of culmination, no moment where the journey resolves into something clear. The season simply ends, as if it has run out of space rather than reached a destination. The absence of any follow-up, any conversation about what has been achieved or what might come next, leaves a gap that is not immediately filled.

To have been central to the process and then quietly excluded from its continuation carries a particular kind of weight. It is not overt. It does not demand attention. It settles in, gradually, as the noise of the season fades.

Looking back, the numbers present a version of events that is difficult to dispute. Contributions made, records established, performances that stand in isolation as evidence of success. They suggest that the role was fulfilled, perhaps even exceeded.

The discomfort lies in what sits beneath those numbers.

Each time the situation required intervention, the response had been to provide it. Responsibility was assumed rather than shared. Outcomes were secured through personal effort rather than collective growth. It was effective, in the immediate sense. It ensured that the team remained competitive, that the season did not unravel.

It also shaped the experience of those around it in ways that are less easily measured. The space for others to step into responsibility was reduced. The reliance on a single point of stability meant that the development of multiple points of strength was never fully realised.

Leadership, in that form, becomes a paradox. It delivers results while quietly limiting the capacity of others to contribute to them.

And in that space, the question begins to take shape, not as an accusation, but as an observation that resists easy resolution.

The move to the Shires cricket the next season arrived, not as a grand decision, but as a quiet shift. Alongside Terry Murphy, one of the very few long term members of my team at SUCC the previous year, who carries experience without the same attachment to the structures left behind, the game changes shape. Different competition, different rhythm, a different set of expectations. Runs come, freely and often, seasons brushing against a thousand. Another premiership, this time in a context that feels less encumbered.

Success returns in a form that is easier to accept, less entangled with questions of control and recognition.

The giving does not stop, but it recalibrates. Boundaries form where none had existed before, not as barriers, but as guides. Participation replaces obligation. The game becomes something to be engaged with, rather than something that must be held together.

Even so, the question lingers.

What was being chased on that ground, under that light, in that role that seemed so logical at the time? Recognition had already been achieved. Contribution had been made, in ways that would outlast the moment.

What remained was something less tangible, tied perhaps to the belief that things could be shaped, directed, controlled to align with a vision that felt correct.

The structures of the Club operate with their own logic, one that balances individual moments against collective progression. Decisions made within that framework rarely account for the full human impact they carry in their wake.

The conflict, then, is not between right and wrong, but between competing versions of right.

From one angle, the decisions made sense. From another, they fractured something that had been built, even if only temporarily.

The presence of younger players, their uncertainty, and their reliance brings another layer to it all. The instinct to step in, to carry, to ensure, mirrors something deeper, something that extends beyond the boundary rope. The role of a father, whether present in the moment or imagined at its edges, shapes those instincts in ways that are not always immediately visible.

Providing, protecting, guiding. The lines between those actions blur easily.

At what point does protection become prevention? When does guidance remove the need for others to find their own way? The caritas gauge continues to hum beneath it all, measuring not what is done, but what is given up in the process. It does not offer answers. It simply reflects capacity, and the point at which that capacity begins to strain.

The establishment’s plan did not unfold as imagined. The opportunity did not lead where it was expected to. Frustration found its place, accompanied by a quieter, more persistent realisation about the nature of leadership and the cost of assuming too much responsibility for outcomes that are not entirely one’s own.

The question that remains is not about what happened, or even why.

It is about what comes next, when the next opportunity presents itself dressed in the same language of service and recognition, carrying the same quiet expectation that the answer will once again be yes.

Does the response change, or does the pattern repeat?

Because in the end, the measure is not in the runs scored or the wickets taken, but in understanding when giving everything begins to take more than it returns.