Misremembering, Cricket Shots and Your Personal Narrative

I once caught myself embellishing a story to a friend who would find out what I had done. Not willing to spend the rest of my life telling two separate stories to two separate people and making sure they never met, I fessed up and rolled the story back a bit. Memorably, and forgivingly, my friend said he understood because, 'The narrative demanded it at that point'. It was a kindness. I've tried to hold off exaggeration and dishonesty ever since. One of the reasons is that your lies become your truths over time. You misremember hyperbole as fact. Not the greatest sin in the world, especially for those of us who like to think we can spin a tale, but good to be aware of what you are doing.

I've told a tale from time to time about the greatest cricket shot I ever saw.

For a few years in the summer, aged about 12-14, I went after school to Edgbaston, the Warwickshire County Cricket ground, with a few friends. I was a member but you could also get in cheaply after tea. Watching two hours of cricket was infinitely preferable to history essays and over the years I found many excellent ways to use the time after school and before eating that had nothing to do with homework. I was sitting behind the bat slightly to the left. About fine leg and five or six rows back.

And the way I have told the story I saw England and Surrey opening bat John Edrich hit a ball for six so hard that instead of lofting it a long way over the boundary it went in a straight line.  I can still see the ball going from bat to row C, remaining six feet off the ground the whole journey. I have described this shot as a hook all my life. But if I close my eyes again I can't recall the delivery or the ball hitting bat, just the trajectory of the ball which my young eyes saw clearly.

John Edrich died recently aged 83. The first thing I noticed above the obituary I read in The Guardian was a picture of him playing a shot. He was playing the shot he must have played when I saw that 6. He was a left-handed bat. Left-handed.

So, I was not sitting at fine leg but third man and I did not see a hook. What I saw was more remarkable. As obituarist Peter Mason wrote on Christmas Day, Edrich was '.... a ruthless dispatcher of bad deliveries, using his strong forearms to punch the ball to midwicket or through the covers.' I saw Edrich punch the ball through the covers for six. Imagine Ben Stokes' winning shot at Headingley against Australia after that mega last-wicket partnership with Jack Leach, only played slightly higher and later so going for 6 not 4. Unbelievable. But I saw it with my own eyes. Least, I think I did.