It's Just Not Cricket

Before we begin talking about piss-taking, competitiveness and other aspects of the male psyche explored in the new Australian comedy Save Your Legs, here is a brief public service announcement for those readers not versed in cricket terminology. Take it away, Save Your Legs star and national treasure Stephen Curry.

“'Save your legs' is something that has probably been said at every game of park cricket ever played,” he says. “It's an instruction yelled by your team when you're batting. If you've hit a four or a six, if the ball is heading for the boundary and you need a little bit of an indication of whether you need to run or not – because the average park cricketer only has about ten runs in them before they're buggered – 'save your legs' is an instruction to keep a little in your tank.”

So there you go. Naturally enough, cricket – especially the kind played by enthusiastic amateurs like the Abbotsford Anglers, played in the film by the likes of Curry, Brendan Cowell (who also penned the screenplay), Damon Gameau and David Lyons – is a major element of Save Your Legs. But director Boyd Hicklin's film, inspired by his documentary of the same name, is about more than a rag-tag team of Aussies embarking on a sporting tour of cricket-mad India. It's about a group of male friends expressing their affection and devotion to one another the best way they know how (and without actually having to say anything out loud) – by playing games together.

As Curry – who plays team leader Teddy – explains, “it's about a tribe, having a sense of belonging and camaraderie. You could be in an angling club or a calisthenics group – it's a shared passion. But when the blokes in Save Your Legs first met, within one beer in their first meeting they would have been talking about cricket.”

“It's their fail-safe,” elaborates Curry's co-star and long-time mate Gameau, who memorably plays alpha-male Angler Stav. “If they have nothing to fall back on, they can always talk about cricket.”

The two know what they're talking about, estimating they've spent the better part of their decade-long friendship – which began during the making of the rock'n'roll comedy Thunderstruck – “competing in everything you would care to imagine”.

“When we were making Thunderstruck, we even had 'Rock at a Post', where you would just pick up a rock and try to hit a post with it,” laughs Curry. “We entertained ourselves for hours with it, but the problem is Damon is one of those annoying dudes who is better than you at everything.”

“It's just belief,” shrugs Gameau. “You walk in thinking, 'I've got Curry here'.”

“And I walk in thinking, 'He's got Curry here'. It's not fair, but I've never lost the passion for wanting to beat him at something,“ Curry says.

The pair's easygoing but competitive rapport echoes many of the themes of Save Your Legs, which Curry believes has appeal beyond sporting fans. “I think people might expect it to be a cricket film and, if they don't love cricket, they won't love the film,” he says. “But it's not necessarily about that.”

Really, he says, it's about friendship and the odd but fulfilling ways in which friends complement (and compliment) one another. “If I think about my friendships, there's every kind of archetype in that group,” he says. “And in this story's cricket team, there are examples of people I'm friends with. And the good thing about that is that everyone has someone to take the mickey out of! That Aussie thing of 'the more I take the piss, the more I like you' is very, very true.”

In cinemas now.