It had to come and now it has - the annual reset at Cricket Et Al known by the name of my boyhood idol. Craig Serjeant Day is his seventy-fourth birthday, our first anniversary as a site paid for by subscribers, and your last chance, as mentioned earlier, to subscribe at the original bargain price of $20pcm or $100pa. At midnight tonight, we’ll be reluctantly turning up the dial to $30pcm and $124pa, in honour of the great man’s highest Test score and his match-winning partnership with Graeme Wood at Georgetown in 1978. Have I told you about this….?
People ask occasionally: why Craig Serjeant? I ask: why not? Who’s to say why we alight on our chosen favourites? I remember learning that Craig was studying pharmacy, which sounded interesting. I remember that his nickname was Bilko, which at first I was too young to understand.
Of course, he looked great - lanky, tanned, floppy-haired. He was also that little older which I took as evidence of maturity - in fact, I’ve just discovered that Craig has a national service record, so will definitely need to check that out. Anyway, we can make surprisingly momentous decisions when young, can’t we? When did you choose your football team, your favourite food, your favourite song? Almost certainly in your youth, from which point you have not deviated. And your first sporting hero is like your first crush - never completely behind you. So here I am nearly fifty years later able to remember Craig’s Test match scores in sequential order but not names, passwords, pin numbers etc.
Anyway, don’t be this guy….
…and let Craig Serjeant Day slip past you. If you’re still hovering in the free subscriber hinterland of Cricket Et Al, today is your final opportunity to upgrade before the price rise. Sign up now for the following:
The opportunity to read every word we write, rather than the truncated passages outside the paywall;
The freedom to have at it in the comments section, and to join in the chatroom banter;
The chance to buy my new true crime title, Who Is Wallace?, available exclusively from this kitchen table;
A level of comfort about Samsa’s future.
Also guess what? Coming soon is the must-have item of the season, exclusive to Et Alers: the T-shirt that the great man always deserved. Stay tuned! But in the meantime, join us on our journey - it’s going to be a huge summer.
Craig Serjeant and Graeme Wood, two great West Australians ….
I had a girlfriend at school who deeply admired Graeme Hole & breathlessly watched his every brief innings at the MCG