CRICKET: Texting time as Megan misses out

25th January 2006

HAMISH BIDWELL

Growing up, Megan Graham only had one dream. It wasn't to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a movie star. No, Graham's goal was to see the Central Districts women's cricket team become the best in New Zealand.

It was something she spent her entire adult life trying to achieve and, now, that time is almost at hand. For the first time ever, the Hinds have made the State League final and will play Canterbury in Christchurch this Saturday for national women's supremacy.

Graham won't be there though. After 18 years as a player and another one as manager, the Hinds' date with destiny has come a year too late for the 38-year old.

The initial euphoria of Sunday, when the team rose from fourth in the table to finish second, has subsided and now Graham is slowly coming to terms the team's achievement.

"It's really hard for me at the moment," Graham said during an interview at the Laver and Wood workshop in Waipawa yesterday, where she, husband Marty and James Laver make some of the finest cricket bats in the world.

"There's just so many emotions and one of them, hugely, is jealously. Seriously it is.

"I'm just so jealous of those girls because it's something I strived for for 20 years and couldn't do and now that I'm gone, they've gone and done it.

"I knew it was time for a new, fresh approach this year with a new coach and a new manageress and, as hard as it is for me to accept, I think me being manageress last year was probably detrimental.

So instead of being with the team in Christchurch on Saturday to cheer the girls home, Graham will be in Hawke's Bay, either playing for Harvey's Cornwall or at home.

"Marty's been on the internet looking at flights for me - he's quite insistent that he wants me to go down to the game - but I don't want to," said Graham.

"In many ways, yes I do want to be down there supporting them, but I don't think I could handle it emotionally and they don't need that sort of hassle.

"I want to be there but I'm too scared and I certainly don't want to expose the players to that sort of emotion. Because if the people around them are anxious and over-excited, that's not the exposure they need to help remain calm and focused.

"I've got 20 years of everything building up and I don't think I've got the ability to control that, so if they can't see me, then they won't know. They won't see it and they won't hear it in my voice and so I'll just be texting them and supporting them in the way I have for every game."

Texting has been costing Graham a small fortune of late and she went through $50 of credit in 10 seconds flat on Sunday as she kept abreast of the news from the Hinds' match in Wanganui and another in Hamilton. Once everything was confirmed and the team were final-bound, Graham says it was, easily, one of the great moments of her life.

She says she can hardly recall joy like it - and she wasn't even playing. That's why she's so pleased that Lincoln Doull is the coach this year, because he will have allowed some brief jubilation and then the players will have quickly re-focused on the job at hand.

Graham says it will take a special performance to beat the great Cantabrians but if any team is capable of it, it's her dear friends from the Hinds.