stuart macgill's dismissal of brian lara

in the second innings of the second test

2000/2001
it is akin to the

moment when the

batsman left the

atmosphere of his suit

a viral agent is being

expelled from my body

into empty space it

is exploding due to

lack of pressure and

its particles are

dispersing widely and

becoming invisible

benign little pieces

of the cricketer are

registering on the

radar unnoticed in

the panic i am

returning to my

previous good health

there are distances

to be traversed and i

am starting to

orient myself in a

suitable direction you

can see to port-of-spain

from up here when

the launch took place

their was an air of

optimism in the room

expectations were

being tested and some

were fearing humiliation

some had made such

claims in the days

leading up to the event

that they could now

feel harsh

disappointments

approaching these days

were filled with

excitement and i busied

myself with whatever

small task i could

find i used my

thumbnail to scrape

the dirt out of all the

tiny grooves on the

bottom of my nikes

even the most

humble of predictions

caused a sense of

elated terror everything

was so important and so

precarious and this

importance felt just

nice it may have

been seen by some as

a drastic measure

even one deriving

from a touch of

paranoia this purging

of a relatively passive

virus from my body but

it was something i

felt was made all the

more important by this

very passivity itself

my body was far more

decrepit than could be

medically imagined i

had been reduced to

little more than the

creased spaces through

which i still adeptly

moved the problem was

not with the motion itself

i was glad to have gone

through this the

physiotherapist regretted

nothing but the

unpredictability of

the cricketer's

hamstrings the

unrestrained actions

leading directly up to

his death remained

still unprophesied after

years of rigorous

testing and

simulations a little

uncertainty that i

carry with me to

this day to prevent

the very real threat of

feeling oneself out of

form control was raucous

with the threat of

total brain explosion that

haunts any soothsaying

agent or gifted

medicine man they shut

down all outside

communications and

went into a frenzy

of speculation