ON Sunday May 26, local cricket tragics Lyndon and Llewellyn Oakley left Australia’s winter weather behind for a whirlwind summer tour of England with Exotic Cricket Tours (ECT).
The father and son pair later enjoyed a 10-day personal tour of Ireland together, then spent 12 days experiencing the best of Paris, Geneva, Venice, and Rome before heading home.
For 24-year-old Llewellyn, it was not only a welcome break from his job at the Alcoa Smelter, but also an opportunity to spend some quality time with his dad, Lyndon, who has terminal lung cancer.
It was an experience both will treasure. During the three-week tour of the UK they got to stretch their cricket muscles at the hallowed cricket grounds of Lords, Balmoral Castle, the Grange in Edinburgh, Bamburgh Castle, Windsor Castle, and others.
Lyndon, now retired from a lifetime of working as a stonemason/builder, comes from a cricketing family and has played the game for 50 years. And he’s not letting his cancer define his life. He attributes the disease to his lifelong smoking habit and blames only himself, but wants to inspire other people with it “to stay positive”.
He’s one of many who have appreciated the opportunities presented to them by ECT and already enjoyed two cricket adventures with the group before this one came up; one in Samoa in 2023 and the other in Hawaii in 2014. ECT is a private group which regularly takes over-60s cricket fanatics to play and explore all around the world.
The trip to the UK was awe-inspiring, he said. “Some of the places where we played, like Bamburgh Castle, that was just out of this world. Like you’re playing on a cricket ground, and right beside you is a castle, and (you think) how can that be? The backdrop is just picturesque.”
The first game of the UK tour was on May 29 at Balmoral Castle, and the last was at Windsor Castle against the Royal Household team on June 21, Lyndon said.
Despite his condition, as well as “a bit of a sore knee” he played in numerous games, but said Llewellyn played in all of them.
“I captained in the game at Balmoral Castle, and played in the game at Windsor… but (because of the sore knee) I umpired a few, too.”
And while the majority of the team’s players were over 60 the standard of the games was still fairly high, he said.
“It wasn’t an over-60s competition … (and) we only won three games for the whole tour.” So there was still plenty of challenge.
For Llewellyn, an A-Grade player and just 24, there were no young guys in their own group, “but in the other teams there were”.
The pair played 12 games all up, Lyndon said. Llewellyn “really enjoyed it” and “learned a lot from the old fellas”.
“We were limited to the amount of balls we could face, too,” Lyndon said. “So, at some of the games, like at Windsor, we could only face seven balls. But then in other games the maximum in any game was 25 balls (and) some games…where you could only face 10.”
England put on a superb summer for the pair, and they “only lost one game through rain; it was beautiful weather all the time”.
It was pretty special to visit Lords for the first time, too, Lyndon said, and he’s looking forward to going back at some point. All up, the ECT team “played on some high level grounds, like the Grange in Edinburgh, where Australia and Scotland play normal-age cricket”.
“It’s a really, really good ground.”
Llewellyn also “got a kick out of the high level grounds” and also a surprise opportunity to see the King and Queen of England pass by when the team was at Windsor Castle.
“When we played…with the Windsor Cricket Club, we did the tour of Windsor Castle in the morning, and then in the afternoon we got down to the Windsor ground,” said Lyndon.
“We were only there 10 minutes and the guy organising it from Windsor said, ‘By the way…the King and Queen Camilla will be driving by, so you can come over and stand beside the road if you’d like’.
“So we were all able to witness the King and Queen going off to the races. So that was pretty special.”
Then at their second last of the tour, at the Isle of Wight, “we had a King’s representative there (who came) and had a chat to us before the game. So that was pretty special, too.”
To top it all off, Lyndon and Llewellyn captained a side against each other in the game before the Isle of Wight, adding to the memorable moments for this father and son pair. And while Llewellyn’s team won, “I got Man of the Match for that game, so I was pretty happy about that,” Lyndon said.
“It was all good fun.”
Not one to let his condition slow him down, Lyndon is off again on another cricket tour with ECT in six weeks, this time to Vanuatu, and then Switzerland in February.
“I cope ok with (the cancer). I just want to inspire other people to stay positive … because everyone’s gonna suffer from it sooner or later, whether it’s you directly or a family member or a friend; we all know someone that’s got it.
“So, we’ve just got to help people to stay positive.
“My lung cancer is incurable, so I know one day it will take me. So I just want to talk openly about it and encourage others to stay positive in between now and then, and look after your health.
“We can still make a difference, you know.”
