I grew up thinking I was Dennis Lillee on the cricket pitch. I use to think that the tennis ball needed a good rub against my crutch every time I went into bowl, never knowing why they actually rubbed their crutch with it. I found it more entertaining knowing that my older brother who had been knocking the living shit out, of my over of 40 balls, all over the damn pitch (the width of our street and the surrounding greener pastures) that he'll be soon be out with a yorker. Alas our rules were pretty simple.

• No hooking the ball (luckily we were both right hand batsmen)
• The caravan or cars parked nearby were 'silly' fielders thus if you hit it either on the full you were caught out
• A nick behind stumps was an automatic out
• The pitch itself was about one and half times longer than a normal pitch thus giving running out plenty of opportunity
• Fielders were given the rights to place themselves and knew that a catch would put them at the crease (a white chalk outlying of old Gyprock)
• Overs were classified on a mercy and give up - something along the lines 'Here James have a go."
• All you need is three (a good number since there were 4 men in the family, a couple friends up the street and random walk-in's)

The team usually relied on good weather, a tennis ball which was well used, stumps (a very large green plastic 'Otto' bin about twice the size as regular stumps), an old bat which always had fresh red cricket ball cherries on it, and a decent amount of courage to last a couple hours of play.

Adam thought himself to be a little bit of a Don Bradman, obviously brought up on the family hysteria that our Pop (grandfather) was also a good batsman. I remember stories, usually highly exaggerated, about him being an anchor batsman (a batsman who would not go for the runs or glory but to make bowlers become demoralised because he would just step out and place the ball in the dirt at his feet) and actually being quite good at it. Alas the never-ending books about cricket cluttering into library, which I don't think he ever bothered reading too much (was too interested in the ABC radio, crosswords or a game of patience).

You would know you had a good bowling session. Your arm hurt, the runs were cheap and there was some very near 'outs' which had us all jumping on the spot, legs spread apart, crouched, hands in air, screaming -- 'Howzat!" at nobody in particular - quite possibly was our dog Ladie (Lad-EE) who would sit bewildered at this bizarre sport. I always knew if I placed the ball at Adam's feet he would step back thus giving a good angle to hit that enormous target of a wicket. However he would train himself to walk into the bowl when he caught me doing it, so I knew that I could probably bowl it every 1 in 10. James's way of bowling was interesting as if you decided to hit him all over the place, he would eventually start pegging the ball at you, bodyline style - amusing to see but if he didn't get a bat soon enough we would lose one of the three team members, thus stumps would have be dragged back up the driveway (not fun if the bin was very full).

I remember trying my hand at spinning once on Adam and I got him out on one such occasion with a very awe inspiring magic delivery. However I never could remember to imitate the bowl ever again, as my wrist would hurt like a bitch every time I did. So I resorted back to my Dennis impersonation, a stare back down the wicket, a scratch of the groin with the ball, a spit into the dirt, a bull's charge windup, and a run up which was at least 100 metres long and would have me panting so hard that I sometimes stumbled on the approach to bowl (way too much sugar when I was a kid). You need to get yourself out to a friendly cricket game once in a while and watch these sorts of things.

Given the retirement of an Australian legend come tomorrow at the SCG in which looks to be an Australian whitewash of the Ashes (let me remind you of my whimsical little jibe only a year ago about us losing them) it makes me realise how many of those kids with their own sets of rules will be imitating the greatest spinner of this modern era and not Dennis. I never liked Shane Warne off pitch via the media influence, but on pitch I could see the amount of pain the man has caused England over the years and it's very entertaining to watch, especially baring witness to 'That Ball' (and the if you'd like to refresh yourself - click me) on one fine day. So I can imagine those kids coming up with their own flippers, lazy balls and googoolee's to out-do their own brothers.

I realise that I'm always going to be a Dennis, because I know that the fat kids were the better spinners.