Two 80-year old men, William and Tom, have always lived in the same village, have been friends since they both went to the tiny village school and they managed to spend their National Service time together in the RAF. When it's clear that Tom is dying, William visits him every day. One day William says, 'Tom, we both loved cricket all our lives, and we played in the village team together for years. Please do me one favour, when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's cricket up there.' Tom looks up at William from his death bed and said 'William, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favour for you. ' Shortly after that, Tom passed on. At midnight a couple of nights later, William is awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to him, ' William! William !' 'Who is it?, asks William sitting up suddenly. 'Who is it?' 'William - it's me, Tom.' 'You're not Tom. Tom just died.' I'm telling you, it's me, Tom,' insists the voice. 'Tom! Where are you?' 'In heaven', replies Tom. 'I have some really good news and a little bad news.' 'Tell me the good news first,' says William 'The good news,' Tom says,' is that there's cricket in heaven. Better still, all of our old friends who died before us are here, too. Even better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always summer time and it never rains. And best of all, we can play cricket all day and we never get tired' 'That's fantastic,' says William. 'It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what could possibly be the bad news?' 'You're the opening batsman on Tuesday.
