Lets rewind to the day I became a man...

Time to sit back, relax and take a journey through time to the most defining moment of my life...

So here we are, Nudgee 15A's Cricket second last game of the year, needing to win this to keep their premiership hopes alive. They came up against BSHS and after sending them into bat, had to chase 137. While the two batsmen were in the middle the rest of the team was cracking wise jokes about BSHS, I take half the responsibility and Hoppy gets the other half, but little did we know, a mother from that school was infront of us. She promptly turned around and let us have it, which sends us into silent giggles and one of our parents (the great Dub!) retaliated. That one act of standing up to the enemy, set the tone for an unforgettable day.

Meanwhile Nudgee had started strong and looked to be doing it easy at 3/103 before disaster struck. Maybe it was ball-tampering, we still aren't sure, but BSHS picked up a few quick wickets and when I say a few I mean 5/31 before Ben joined Stephen at the crease, who had entered at number 7 and had stayed strong around the falling of wickets. Colin, a ferocious fast bowler, was on with about 3 overs left and Benjamin was facing up. Ben, not known for his batting, went for a huge cross batted swipe and was bowled.

Now the last batter, for some insane reason, was put down the order behind Ben. This batsmen turned out to be myself, Sanchez. With a name like that how I can bat last. The equation was 3 runs with 1 wicket in hand and one ball left in this over plus another 2 overs after that. So I come out to face this fast bowling machine who had been wreaking havoc, Colin, with a big cheesey grin and Stephen says to me, "Sanchez, DON'T YOU FUKIN GET OUT!" which brought me down to earth. So in runs Colin and I'm standing there literally shitting myself, and he bowls an inswinger on offstump and I throw out the pat and bat about 5 inches apart and get an inside edge onto my pad. After safely negating my ball it was down to Stephen to do his part. First ball he faced he threw the whole kitchen sink at it and narrowly avoided edging to the keeper. I threw my head back knowing we were no chance and all hope was lost but the next ball was basically a replay of the first and while some would say Stephen threw the whole house at it and got a knick, we both know he glided it through slips with brilliant class. I was already halfway down the pitch before he even looked up at me and we both knew it was now or never. After running the first two I turned and looked down and Stephen had just passed halfway on his second run. I saw the fielder pick the ball up, and I knew I had to beat his arm. I went for it, slid my bat like its never been slid before and ran through with my arms up after realising we had won. Stephen came down and after the manliest of handshakes said to me these euphoric words, " Lucky i brought another change of underwear!" The team ran on with calls of f*cking brilliant and "woooieee" and we were the heroes of the school for those brief moments. The team was duely shouted free drinks at the canteen for our efforts.

Now for everyone out there that thinks this is too long too read dont worry, a film will be made and out in cinemas late 2010 and for those who want to read more, many books will be written to fill you in on all the things you need to know. Stephen and I thought it was necessary for everyone to hear of this event in history. That night I flipped the TV over to the ABC news sport report and the news reporter read, "Two legends of the modern game of cricket have come together to win a breathtaking game, Stephen and Sanchez put on a magnificent 3 run partnership at a run-a-ball rate with coops scoring all of those with his great wristy shot through slips, Natasha Balicrishna reports more in the field..." These are the moments that shouldn't be forgotten and has forged a great relationship between these heroes.

For me, it was a forming of a great friendship between Stephen and Sanchez, akin to the forming of friendship between Harry, Ron and Hermione when they battled the Troll. Tune in later for my next post, in the mean time, don't do anything I wouldn't do!