Amid the swirling hum of the arena, the crackle of the loudspeakers and the metallic rattle of applause, Frank Worrell is alone. He has been alone throughout the summer. But now he is at the point of shedding his loneliness. It is late in the afternoon, the match is completed, the series over. The crowd — men in suits, women in floral hats and best dresses, boys and girls in school uniforms — fills the arena. In the years to come more people will claim to have been here on this afternoon at the MCG than could possibly have been. But, in a sense, it is true, and in a sense it will be right for everyone to say they were there the day Frank Worrell shed his loneliness.
He is alone when the metallic rattle of applause ceases. He is still alone when the slight figure of Bradman steps up to the microphone with a trophy in his hand, while the Australian captain stands beside him in the shadows of the stand — the Australian captain, whose eyes miss nothing, and whose eyes are still on duty even though the tour is over. And even when Worrell steps to the microphone and is stopped before he can speak by a chorus of song and three loud, emphatic cheers that could be heard for miles outside the ground on this calm summer afternoon, he has still not shed his loneliness.
But when he finally speaks his voice is fragile in a way that it has not been all summer. His words are good, delivered with all the grace of a perfect stroke, one that is written into a moment and brings to the world the distracting beauty of a perfect act. But the voice is fragile. It is fragile because the loneliness is leaving him. And as he speaks to the crowd, the loneliness departs, word by word. But it does not finally leave him until he turns to the Australian captain, his offerings in hand. The captain’s cap, which he hands to Benaud, is, he says, his scalp. The small white necktie that follows, his neck. His deep crimson blazer, the upper half of his body. He does not offer the lower half of his body because his legs are too tired to be of use to anyone. Frank Worrell hands the items to the Australian captain. And this, written into the moment and there for all to recall forever after, throughout all the summers that will follow, is his final gift. The gift of grace. He hands them all to the Australian captain, then steps back into the shadows of the stand from which he emerged. With the cap, the scarf and the blazer, he is also handing over the weight of the summer, that part of him that couldn’t be shared — until now. As the weight of the cap, scarf and blazer leave him, so too does the loneliness.
He wears a sunny smile, his eyes bright with the moment, lightly touching the rows upon rows of faces that stare back at him from this concrete and steel city-within-a-city. Frank Worrell is no longer alone. The weight he carried all through the summer is off his shoulders.