In my final year at school I was chosen to open the batting for the Transvaal Under-19 side with a big-hearted kid called Craig Norris from a neighbouring school. We had one mid-week warm-up game against a Transvaal Invitation XI at Morningside before flying down to Stellenbosch for the 1982 Nuffield Week, a tournament for South African high schools.I cant remember exactly what we thought but Im sure we assumed that the Invitation XI would be made up of ringers and sundry club unemployables of good standard. Wed negotiate past the fixture with the minimum of fuss and be on that plane down to the Cape in a jiffy.In those days, club cricket in Johannesburg was properly competitive. Several Premier League clubs employed English professionals like Richard Lumb or Ashley Harvey-Walker, sometimes called Ashley Harvey-Wallbanger by the wits of the local scene. Every so often you would encounter a Transvaal player on a soft club weekend, or a Transvaal B player trying to play their way back into form or fitness.Schoolboy cricket was hard-fought but genteel. You played on good wickets in front of gently appreciative fathers and mothers sitting in deck chairs; you wore your blazer to tea, didnt argue with the umpire, and didnt appeal unless you had a good chance of getting it right. Mostly they were heavenly days.As a younger boy, clutching my precious 12th-birthday bat and standing timidly knock-kneed in my recently scrubbed takkies, I remember listening to Lumb and Harvey-Walker in a daze of wonder. If you were lucky enough, your headmaster might select you to attend one of their precious net sessions on Friday afternoons at Balfour Park. I didnt learn many cricket lessons at these sessions, spending the afternoons in a funk of thwarted desire. Lumb, I noticed, was kitted out with St Peter equipment, down to batting mitts that shaped over his hands like boxing gloves. Only boys with rich parents could afford St Peter gear. The rest of us had to be content with sanding the edges out of our Gray-Nicolls bat (sand with the grain, urged my dad), lovingly applying linseed oil in the long months before summer with a lappie (rag) from the kitchen.Sometimes Lumb spoke about Geoff Boycott - or Geoffrey - his Yorkshire opening partner. It was usually in tones of mild derision, but he always managed to find space in his tales for a sort of reluctant admiration. Then he laughed and shook his big head of hair and went back to the far less perplexing business of leading the fielding drills.Harvey-Walker was a different proposition. He was clipped, speaking in a language I identified as English but only partially understood. We must have seemed retarded because we never quite understood what he was saying but didnt have the courage to ask him to repeat himself. Sessions were conducted in a busy miasma of mutual incomprehension as he clucked at us in his Derbyshire accent, and we did the best we could to act on what we thought hed said. Net sessions didnt run particularly smoothly.It was only when Hugh Page came into the schoolboys dressing room as Craig and I were padding up after we lost the toss against the Invitation XI that we began to realise what we were in for. You might want to wear this, Page said to me kindly as he passed me his helmet, an outsized maroon number with a protruding visor that stretched all the way to the Zimbabwe border. I had never worn a helmet before. Mostly we just wore our caps. If you came upon anyone really quick in schoolboy cricket, you reeled in your shot-making and waited for him to blow himself out. This helmet was large and ungainly, with fiddly straps. It was like batting inside a hollowed-out watermelon. Craig, who was better than me and had played more regularly at a higher level - he was playing in the Transvaal Mean Machine side a year or two later - probably took first ball, but before long I was facing Graham Dilley, then opening the bowling for England.Dilley hammered his front foot down like some storybook Gulliver but also had a back-foot drag, so the two sounds arrived fractionally before his deliveries cannoned into the splice of my much-used old County bat. I hopped about the crease like a scalded rabbit, and didnt score anything in front of square for the first hour as I flicked and glided and nudged.Neal Radford opened the bowling with Dilley, and when he realised he couldnt get me to nick off, proceeded to cheerfully bounce me. The forward short leg probably got in on the action but I was too busy trying to survive to listen very carefully. When Dilley and Radford came off, Page replaced them. He was slippery, darting it off the seam, thudding a couple into Craigs midriff and hurting him on the juicy inner part of the thigh. Alvin Kallicharran watched it good-naturedly from the slips. The wickets would come, his indulgent smile seemed to be saying, it was just a matter of time.After a while their pity hardened. Radford bounced us some more. A Warwickshire professional whose name Ive forgotten started to get lippy. We couldnt have been far from a hundred partnership - Alfred 40-odd - when I spooned an inelegant mistimed drive to mid-off. The Warwickshire pro went off, swearing like a sewer.As I walked back to the pavilion, struggling with my helmet, our coach caught my eye. That wasnt so bad, he said breezily, and I could see the relief in his eyes. Eric Bailly Manchester United Jersey . The defence is doing its part, too. 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Now tied for second in the league in shootout goals, the 24-year-old likes to see what the opposing goaltender has in store before he ultimately lands on a move. MIAMI -- While the Marlins may be checking the trade market for starting pitching, Miamis hitters are struggling to generate runs.Miami was shut out for the second straight game and dominated by Jeremy Hellickson for the second time in a week during a 4-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night.This is nothing more than a little blip on whats going to happen through the course of the season, Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. Its not like were not going to hit. I think were going to hit. Im very confident of that.It is the first time the Marlins lost back-to-back games since dropping three straight June 28-30. They were also blanked Sunday 3-0 by the Mets and have not scored in 19 innings.Hellickson threw six innings of one-hit ball Monday after limiting Miami to a run over eight innings in a 4-1 win five days prior.Just executing, Hellickson said. I dont think its this lineup in particular. The last two games my balls have been down for the most part and just getting a lot of easy outs.The 29-year-old has been the subject of trade rumors, some connecting him to the Marlins.It doesnt bother me, Hellickson said. Once Im in this locker room and obviously you still see it on TV and stuff, but my focus was on helping us win today. Now its on to the next start. I see it and read about it, but its been like this for a few years so its pretty easy to block out right now.Hellickson retired the first nine batters he faced and finished with one walk, one strikeout and 70 pitches thrown before being lifted for a pinch hitter. He lowered his ERA to 3.65 and pitched at least six innings for a ninth straight start.I dont want to lose him, Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. I wish he could stay here. Hes that solid. Hes been like that the whole year.Tommy Joseph hit a two-out RBI double in the top of the eighth to break a scoreless tie, and David Hernandez (2-3) pitched an inning in relief to earn the victory aas four Phillies pitchers combined on a two-hit shutout.ddddddddddddThe Phillies scored three runs in the ninth off A.J. Ramos on an RBI single by Cesar Hernandez and two errors by the Marlins.Miami outfielder Ichiro Suzuki grounded out in his only at-bat -- a pinch-hit appearance in the eighth -- to remain at 2,996 career hits.Fernando Rodney (1-3) struck out the first two batters he faced in the eighth before walking Maikel Franco, who scored from first on Josephs double to left-center field.Miamis Jarred Cosart made his first start since April 22 and tossed five scoreless innings. He allowed three hits and one walk while striking out three.Id be lying if I say I wasnt nervous in the first inning, Cosart said. You kind of forget what a big league setting is like after a month and a half being gone. The ups and down of minor league, rehab in between, the heart was going.Cosart pitched in place of lefty Wei-Yin Chen, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list before the game with a left elbow strain.TRAINERS ROOMMarlins: Chen was placed on the DL retroactive to July 21. ... 1B Justin Bour (right ankle sprain) hopes to begin a rehab stint on Thursday. Hes still having some trouble with some running things and some moving around issues, but were trying to get him game-like at-bats before he is physically able to do rehab games, Mattingly said.NEXT UPPhillies: RHP Jerad Eickhoff (6-11, 3.98 ERA) will start Tuesdays game against the Marlins. Eickhoff allowed six runs, five earned, and nine hits in five innings in a 9-3 loss to the Marlins in his last start on July 21 in Philadelphia.Marlins: RHP Tom Koehler (7-8, 4.42) is scheduled to start Tuesdays game in a rematch of the July 21 game. Koehler pitched a season-high eight innings and allowed two hits and one earned run in the victory. ' ' '