Jesus Christ and the googly bowler

His nickname on the local cricket circuit was Jesus Christ, because of the way he was frequently resurrected from the dead, the umpire's raised finger suddenly withdrawn following a fearsome glare informing the umpire that despite whatever he and his finger may think, he the captain of the team and owner of the town, was not out. It happened several times every match, sometimes even when he was clean bowled the umpire was forced to hastily notice that it was a no-ball.

Mr Benfleet was used to getting his way over all things. He was after all the founder, mayor and main employer in the town of Benfleet the cricket club he played for also bore his name, the umpires too were in his employ, as was every single man on the pitch, watching from the pavilion and nearly all of his opponents, for the surrounding villages and towns the Benfleet Steel Works was the main source of employment, directly or indirectly.

Most of his opponents joined the unspoken conspiracy to keep Mr Benfleet at the crease, at least until he had scored his obligatory century: dropping catches, missing run out opportunities and bowling deliberately badly, for Mr Benfleet bore serious grudges and anyone getting him out too often, or appealing too rigorously was at risk of losing their employment, as was any of his workers taking the liberty of becoming sick or ill on his watch. Had he known of his nickname, and the reasons behind it, he would have immediately sacked every single cricketer on the company's books.

Then one day a googly bowler arrived in town. He was of Indian origin, though he spoke perfect English, albeit with a strong accent. He had moved to Middlebrooke, a village on the edge of the Benfleet empire and was rumoured to be of independent means, for he was never known to work. The mystery of his origins and his wealth however were nothing compared to the mysteries of his bowling art. For art it certainly was, if not out and out mystecism and magic. Every club had at least one spin bowler, a few even bowled legspin and old Bozer from Benfleet Seconds bowled a googly of sorts, however nobody in the town had ever seen a spinner like the Asian: His arms sprayed all over as he bowled and the spin he extracted was phenomenal, a ball pitching way outside leg stump would turn tail and whizz passed the off, he made the ball kick and veer like a wild pony.

None of us could play him, but it was for Mr Benfleet in particular that he reserved his prize asset, the mysterious googly, a delivery that turned and spat in exactly the opposite direction it should have, leaving the honoured mayor flailing wildly at thin air. Time and time again he beat Benfleet's bat, and inevitably in only his second over, he got a ball to straighten and hit his pads. One of the villagers, fired up by the spirited bowling, appealed for leg before wicket. However, the Asian had a cunning, googler's mind and tried an approach that nobody had thought of before. "No, no, no" he shouted to the fielder and the umpire, "there was a bit of bat on that, not out, not out."

And so it continued. Benfleet could no more master the whims of the legspinner's googlies than he could turn night into day or evil into good. Time and time again he was caught, stumped, hit on the pads and each time the bowler announced that it was not out. Even when Benfleet was clean bowled the bowler pointed to the crease and said "I overstepped," prompting the umpire to signal no-ball.

The contest went on for what seemed forever, though in truth was less than a dozen overs. The great Brain Benfleet was reduced to the foolery of a clown, swiping haplessly at thin air as the ball whizzed and twirled around him, deprived of the comparative dignity of dismissal. Finally the googly bowler appealed for what was a thin edge to the wicket-keeper. Now no umpire would ever dream of giving Jesus Christ out to an edge that fine and the umpire gravely shook his head and said not out.

Without saying a word though, Mr Benfleet tucked his bat under his arm and 'walked' to the pavillion.

"Now that's an English gentleman," the googly bowler announced to the world "a man who knows that God is watching him even when the umpire isn't," and his words triggered the loudest round of applause ever heard in Middlebrooke.

After that day Jesus Christ never again rose from the dead. Mr Benfleet had learnt an important lesson, that whatever his status, once on the cricket pitch he was only as good as he played. And play he did, after the Middlebrooke match he batted with a determination and graft he hadn't shown since his youth, when he used those assets to build his factory and his town. No longer relying on his authority to score runs as if by right, he used his considerable powers of gritty determination to bat and bat and bat: he dug in, was unflappable in the face of even the best that googly bowlers could twirl at him, and any bad ball he smashed to the back of beyond.

Just as his game changed on the field, so did the man. Overnight he went from the fierce, cruel, selfish Jesus Christ, to a helpful, kind and

generous businessman and leader. Gone was the scowl he once shared with all mankind and the automatic dismissal for any worker with the nerve to call in sick. In the post-googly world Mr Benfleet became a man who cared about the people in the town he had built, he asked after even the lowliest of souls and a smile appeared when he heard good news of them.

He began to care for his workers too. A wage increase was followed by an additional two days holiday each year for every man, woman and child. Years later, when a recession hit the steel industry and Benfleet was forced to lay off twenty men, he did so with tears in his eyes and produced a month's pay for every man. Not just that, he wrote letters to the great and the good across the county, called on old debts and favours and in this way found work for all twenty men within the month.

Strangely, just as his cricket average had risen after he stopped cheating and starting batting, so too did his profits increase: his workforce, no longer impoverished, unhealty and unvalued, gave everything they had to their work and productivity went through the roof.

When Mr Benfleet died, many years later, the googly bowlers words from that day were engraved on his tombstone: "Now that's an English gentleman, a man who knows that God is watching him even when the umpire isn't," and there isn't a man, woman or child in the whole town of Benfleet that cannot quote that line word for word.