Sydney 2026

Adam was already two beers in and still annoyed about something that had happened ten minutes ago.

“Five-fifty pitch,” he said again, like saying it often enough might stop it being wasted. “You don’t force that. Ever.”

Marcin didn’t look up from the screen. “You say that now. Same bloke who tried to reverse sweep on a green top at Adelaide and blamed the light.”

“That was different.”

Anna laughed. “Everything’s different when it’s you.”

Smith’s wicket replayed. Soft hands, hard lesson.

“Oh that is grim,” Adam said. “That’s not even optimism. That’s boredom.”

“Boredom’s dangerous,” Marcin said. “That’s when people invent momentum.”

Anna raised an eyebrow. “You mean like you did last summer when you decided you were ‘definitely still twenty-five’ and tried to jump the fence at Isobel’s birthday?”

Adam groaned. “I cleared the fence.”

“You fell over the fence,” Anna said. “Then hit on her cousin while bleeding.”

“She hit on me.”

Marcin snorted. “Mate, she asked if you needed an ambulance.”

Another replay. Crowd murmuring. Everything still calm. Still fine.

“That’s the trap though,” Anna said, watching the game. “Things have been getting better for so long, you start thinking that’s just how the world works. Like gravity, but upwards.”

“Yeah,” Marcin said. “That’s how we ended up with infinite substitution. ‘Don’t worry if this runs out, something else will turn up.’”

Adam waved his glass. “To be fair, it did. Over and over. Coal to oil, oil to gas, gas to… whatever we’re calling hope now.”

Anna nodded. “Exactly. It wasn’t madness. It was experience. Things kept working.”

Smith’s name disappeared from the ticker. New batter walking out, helmet already scuffed.

“But then,” Marcin said, “you start playing like the pitch owes you runs. Like there’s always another session, another innings, another fix.”

Adam sighed. “That’s when you throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

“You are the baby,” Anna said. “Every time you try to ‘make something happen’.”

Adam ignored her. “Look at it though. Nothing forcing that shot. No pressure. Just assumed tomorrow would sort it out.”

Marcin leaned back. “That’s the whole system. Hurry up and use what we’ve got now, because if we don’t, we might never get tomorrow. So everything accelerates.”

Anna tapped the table. “Manic growth.”

“Exactly,” Marcin said. “Not because people are greedy, but because stopping feels like death.”

Adam nodded slowly. “Like when you keep drinking because the night’s going well. No one wants to be the bloke who says, ‘Nah, I’m good.’”

Anna smiled. “That was you at Marcin’s wedding. Right before you tried to dance on the table.”

“That table was unstable.”

“So is the economy,” Marcin said dryly.

They watched a few overs in silence. Dead bats. Singles. Crowd restless again.

“You know what’s funny,” Anna said. “Politics still talks like we’re on day one. Like everything’s fresh, expandable, replaceable.”

“Because admitting limits means admitting you can’t just keep doing what worked,” Adam said. “And no one wants to be the one who says that out loud.”

Marcin nodded. “Denying limits isn’t optimism. It’s just staying drunk because the bar’s still open.”

Adam raised his glass. “To sobriety, then.”

Anna clinked. “You first.”

On screen, England settled again. Slower. Less flair. The sort of cricket that doesn’t make highlights but gets you to stumps.

Adam watched, thoughtful. “Boring, this.”

“Boring survives,” Marcin said.

Anna smiled. “So do societies. If they learn before they fall down the stairs.”

They drank, the game ticking along, the afternoon stretching out — everyone quietly aware that nothing dramatic was happening anymore…

Adam was staring at the screen like it had personally offended him. England still batting, still somehow ahead, still managing to look like they might ruin it at any moment.

“Road,” he said again. “Absolute road. You’d have to work pretty hard to fuck this up.”

Marcin smiled. “Which is why they will.”

Anna leaned back. “You always say that.”

“And I’m always right.”

They watched a few overs. Nothing happening. Singles, blocks, the kind of cricket that makes commentators talk about lunch plans.

Adam broke the silence. “You know what this reminds me of? That bloke in Peru or wherever — kidnapped. El Jefe, Presidente or something. Whole thing felt… inevitable.”

Anna frowned. “Wasn’t Peru. Somewhere like that though. Latin America. Rich ground, poor country, weird politics.”

“Exactly,” Marcin said. “That’s the point. It’s never random. It’s what happens when external players keep treating places like spare parts.”

Adam nodded. “Limits.”

Anna raised an eyebrow. “You’re bringing limits into a kidnapping now?”

“Always were there,” Marcin said. “Natural capital, hydrocarbons, land. Someone bumps up against their own limits, they go looking elsewhere.”

Smith’s dismissal replayed again. Still ugly.

“Look at that shot,” Adam said. “That’s peak-something behaviour.”

“Peak number two,” Marcin said.

Anna laughed. “Peak two of f’cking what, exactly?”

“Hydrocarbons,” Marcin said. “They f’cking yanks sucked up the easy stuff by the 50’s, went to the middle east and swapped them some guns, shale bought a little more time. Now it’s diminishing returns dressed up as oligarcic democracy.”

Adam took a sip. “So that is what do you do when you can’t grow your own hydrocarbons?”

Anna didn’t hesitate. “You borrow.”

“Yep, beg borrow, steal, recapitalise” Marcin said. “But not money. You borrow nature. Someone else’s land, someone else’s oil, someone else’s future. Stick it on the balance sheet and call it strategy.”

Adam smirked. “Debt you’re never planning to repay.”

Anna glanced at him. “You saying that out loud?”

On screen, another loose shot. Just short of the fielder. Groans from the crowd.

Adam tapped the table. “That’s the manic bit. Things have been getting better for so long, everyone thinks it’s inevitable. Like gravity switched direction.”

Anna nodded. “And anyone who says ‘maybe slow down’ gets told they’re killing the vibe.”

Marcin smiled. “Or the economy, can’t f’cking question growth, it’s a f’cking religion, like bazball or bloody covid gene replacement lizards, but maybe…”

They watched quietly for a while. England settled again. Defensive. Careful. Almost sensible.

“You know what never gets talked about?” Anna said. “That limits don’t mean stop. They mean steer.”

Adam raised his glass. “But steering means admitting the track ends.”

“Well it doesn’t end, you can keep laying track, but if you are laying track at 1/4 of the pace you are driving at you will run out of track. But what no one wants to say is that, debt as growth, based on consumption of natural capital, has outrun replacement…” Marcin goes on a bit of a tear, “because the whole game’s is about pretending it hasn’t long enough to get you your slice of the pie”

Another over ticked by. The afternoon dragged on. Beer levels dropped.

Adam exhaled. “Funny thing is, boring cricket is the best cricket, it works. Slow, ugly, disciplined, gives you time to experience it fully, makes a day good.”

Anna smiled. “So does fentanyl.”

Marcin clinked glasses. “Yeh, Aldous Huxley, soma is the perfect stabiliser:
no hangover, no resistance, no questions. A chemical promise that says everything’s fine but only for the long term users, and the chemical companies with the market share. As long as they accept one inconvenient fact.”

Adam finished it for him, eyes back on the pitch. “whether you are off your head or not, limits are real, if you try to hit every f’cking ball for 6 you will get out — ignoring facts just means they show up later, or a dressed in a differnt costume, make it louder and you can drown out the opposition for a bit, but the fact is the less chance you have of playing out the full innings the more everybody loses.”