Lives in Cricket No 23 - Brief Candles

71 fact that Stuart was offered good money to become a rugby professional while still at university meant that the idea of a cricket career south of the border never arose. Cricket, therefore, was always ‘for fun’ – serious fun for sure, but without any of the pressure that arises when your wage- packet depends upon the quality of your performance. It is no coincidence that his 169 for Cambridge University was scored when the pressure was off: his exams were behind him and his immediate future was secured elsewhere. Now back at Grange, ‘it’s a pleasure to be there’. Serious club cricket suits him well. Although successful for his club, he has no aspirations to go on to higher things with his cricket, even though time has not yet run out. He told me that he didn’t think it was on the cards that he would play again for the national side, although it later emerged that his name has apparently been mentioned as a potential candidate as Cricket Scotland look for a broader player-base for the national Twenty20 side. 112 And so to the $169,000 question. If you did get the call to play for Scotland in a first-class match, would the fact that you have an average of 169 to protect play any part in your decision whether to play? Unhesitatingly came the reply, ‘No, no, not at all.’ Stuart Moffat is well aware of his unusual place in cricket annals, but it is not the statistics that make his one-and-only first-class innings his proudest sporting memory. It was the innings itself – the coming together of circumstances that produced, and enabled him to enjoy, his greatest day. For all that the University cricket match is now only a shadow of what it once was, and for all that Stuart has four international caps at rugby, one of them won in a historic victory against South Africa, the fact that, for this ‘pleasant victim of circumstance’ (as he referred to himself), a cricket match in The Parks in June 2002 is his proudest sporting memory tells you – as if you didn’t already know it – where his heart really lies. 112 The Herald , 8 December 2010. Runs Aplenty Playing for fun. Stuart Moffat batting for Grange v Uddingston in a Scottish National Cricket League match at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, in June 2010. (Courtesy of David Potter.)