were built around 6996, 8032, 413 and other well-known figures from the game. We thought we were unique in all this - including the manner in wh

Rugby fans took issue with Wallabies coach Michael Cheika over two key positions and opted for uncapped emerging stars Sefanaia Naivalu and Jed Holloway in an Australian Super Rugby team of the year selected by the public.Fijian-born Melbourne Rebels winger Naivalu and NSW Waratahs No.8 Holloway were the only two non-internationals in the team in a Rugby Union Players Association Peoples Choice poll released on Tuesday.?Of the established stars, David Pocock was chosen ahead of Michael Hooper at openside flanker and Israel Folau instead of Tevita Kuridrani at outside centre.Folau was listed at 13 for the Waratahs last ten Super Rugby games, but Cheika has repeatedly nominated fullback as his preferred position for the game-breaking back.At last years World Cup, Hooper invariably started at openside with Pocock at No.8, but the poll only allowed for players to be chosen in one position.Australias immense depth at openside was emphasised by the fact the other three candidates in the poll were also Test players in Sean McMahon, Liam Gill and Matt Hodgson.At 195cm, 23-year-old Holloway potentially gives Cheika an option of a taller No.8 than either Pocock (183 cms) or McMahon (186 cms), who have occupied that spot in recent times.Holloway, who made the Peoples Choice team ahead of established Wallaby Ben McCalman, enjoyed a breakout Super Rugby season which included a hat-trick of tries off the bench against the Highlanders, until he suffered a competition-ending shoulder injury.He could be back in time for part of the upcoming NRC and might be a bolter for the Wallabies spring tour, along with 24-year-old Naivalu, who will then be eligible to represent Australia.RUPAs 2015 Newcomer of the Year, Naivalu scored six tries in as many games in the second half of the Super season.One of the most interesting selections was at right lock, where one-cap Wallaby Adam Coleman got the nod ahead of several other more experienced internationals.Coleman, who made his debut of the bench in the final Test of the England series in June, polled more votes than 62-cap veteran Rob Simmons, Will Skelton (15 Tests) and Sam Carter (13 Tests).Rugby Union Players Association Peoples Choice Team: Dane Haylett-Petty (Western Force), Sefanaia Naivalu (Melbourne Rebels), Israel Folau (NSW Waratahs), Matt Toomua (Brumbies), Rob Horne (NSW Waratahs), Bernard Foley (NSW Waratahs), Nick Phipps (NSW Waratahs), Jed Holloway (NSW Waratahs), David Pocock (Brumbies), Scott Fardy (Brumbies), Adam Coleman (Western Force), Rory Arnold (Brumbies), Greg Holmes (Queensland Reds), Stephen Moore (Brumbies), James Slipper (Queensland Reds). 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Booth picked up 65 caps after making her national team debut in 2002 at the age of 17. She most recently played for Sky Blue FC of the National Womens Soccer League. "It just felt like it was my time to move on," she said in a phone interview from her hometown of Burlington, Ont. I went from being a promising cricketer to a has-been without a major career in the intervening period. It was a route many took. As a has-been, I played league cricket in two cities with a group of overgrown enthusiasts who had the reverse of amnesia - they could remember things that never happened. For example, taking incredible catches at slip, or scoring a century.We strutted out to bat like our heroes, with our collars raised. We knew all the stories, all the jokes - and that convinced us we had all the strokes, knew all the tricks, and that on a clear day we could make the ball reverse swing. And that we could do it on a belly full of beer, which was the staple lunch.Surprisingly, in both phases - the promising and the has-been - we did identical things. We picked national teams with a shrewdness and a lack of bias that was impressive. We knew so much theory it was a wonder we were able to let go of the ball while bowling. As batsmen we were so conscious of where our left shoulder, right foot, even the parting of our hair ought to be, that our regular dismissals for single-digit scores were put down to astrological reasons.Our heads were filled with statistics. In later years our bank codes were built around 6996, 8032, 413 and other well-known figures from the game. We thought we were unique in all this - including the manner in which we followed the fortunes of the national team.The true cricket lover is a fantasist, a legend in his own mind. One such, Marcus Berkmann, has captured some of this flavour in his delightful Rain Men. Cricket forces its players into such contortions of body and mind that it amazes me there arent more books on the humour of the game. Rain Men is not, as one review has suggested, the Fever Pitch of cricket. Fever Pitch (by Nick Hornby) is a tribute to fandom by an Arsenal supporter, but it lacks the lunacy of Rain Men. Or perhaps it is easier for me to identify with a cricket obsessive. One of my regrets as a PG Wodehouse fan is that the Master chose to move to the US, and baseball and golf, despite being a cricket fan. He has written some evocative pieces on cricket (brought together in the book Wodehouse At The Wicket edited by Murray Hedgcock), but nothing commensurate with his interest in the game.dddddddddddd This was a sound business decision, calculated not to alienate his American audience, for Wodehouse continued to follow the game. Legend has it that he gave up his bank job after taking off to The Oval to watch Jessops Match (Gilbert Jessop made 104 out off 139 before Wilfred Rhodes and George Hirst took England to a one-wicket win in 1902), and being forced to return to work before the fireworks started.In Swami and Friends, RK Narayan has written engagingly on the game, capturing the anxieties of the young minds playing it in the local community. But Rain Men (subtitle: The Madness of Cricket) is different because it meshes obsession, resignation, and the batting average that reads like a shoe size. And it speaks uncomfortable truths, especially about the village game, so beloved of myth-makers.Village cricket is a brutal sport in which the strong thrive and the weak are quickly pummelled into submission, says Berkmann. Never in hundreds of village cricket matches have I seen a floppy-eared bunny rabbit scamper anywhere, unless its under the wheels of a passing lorry. Robin redbreasts search in vain for branches of 200-year oaks from which to tweet, as Farmer Giles has had them all cut down. The last burly blacksmith died in 1967. The new parson spends Saturday afternoons with his friend Clive.Berkmanns team, Captain Scott XI (named after the polar explorer who is the symbol of the second best) plays as only such teams can. Without anything incidental like trophies or prestige to aim at, most friendly sides have long since opted for internal strife, he says, and adds, To be treated with the respect you arent due is the dream of every talentless sportsman. Many of my old club-mates will vouch for that.Rain Men by Marcus Berkmann Little, Brown, 1996Wodehouse at the Wicket by PG Wodehouse Hutchinson, 1997 ' ' '