Like many cherished colleagues I was brought up with a cricket ball in my cradle, ready for my inevitable success as a player. My Dad was a mean swing bowler and played for Armstrong Siddeley every fine summer Saturday, while Mum was an official scorer, dotting and crossing in all the right boxes. My sister and I soon learned how to do it and waved back to the umpire whenever required.
At more rarified altitudes than ours, the game was socially divided between amateurs and professionals: gentlemen and players – until 1962 when Fiery Fred Trueman (a player of course) referred to it as a ‘ludicrous business…thankfully abolished’. But the distinction had reflected the long history of cricket as a social catalyst. Or was it?
The Beeb had an article only yesterday on that very idea. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16821779. Romantic and salutary apparently. But I wonder. I’m not convinced that peasants performing for the entertainment of their betters (!) represented anything but an expression of the feudal order. Fraternity, Equality and Liberty it wasn’t! Didn’t the gentlemen and players have separate dressing rooms? Or am I mis-remembering?
Boadicea's Chariot 
Interesting article. I’m also not convinced that playing cricket would have stopped the French from revolting, or that the nation wot plays together stays together. 😉
On the other hand, we haven’t had a civil war for a while, and neither has Australia or India.
Imposed?
Radcliffe Line?
Hi Ara. Realpolitik, in my opinion. It’s what we did in the good old days of Empire. Didn’t always work very well but it usually got us out of there.
Added to which, in re your #1, I feel that you are being disrespectful to our chums the Frogs. Not only do they, nomenclature-wise, have their own version of the noble game of cricket but they won a silver medal in the real game at the 1900 Olympics.
Great Britain won the Gold, of course, which is the closest that us Jocks have ever got to being any good at the game. It’s a bit like the English and the GB curling Golds, I suppose.
Hi, Mr Mackie,
Don’t disagree with you on the Realpolitik, but it wasn’t a civil war.
Regarding my disrespect, I still respectfully submit that cricket wouldn’t have changed the course of the French Revolution, but thereafter, they may have decided that there was some merit in the game, and why not?
I was quite a fan behind the scenes, but in my younger days. This connection did not in any way curb my revolutionary tendencies, such as they were, but then maybe I didn’t understand the rules. 😉
PS. I deliberately didn’t mention Pakistan and South Africa, because I thought I’d stick my neck out far enough. (Smiley thing)
Oops: “stuck”
Bonjour JM,
1900 Olympics cricket- Only one match played. The French team was made up of mostly British expats. Not many jocks in British team (actually Devon and Somerset Wanderers). Britain won by 158 runs after bowling the “French” out in the second innings for 26. (Source: The Cricketer magazine, Feb 2012 issue, still available at the newsstands)
Looking forward to watching “our” boys retain their number one test team status in the next four days (boundaries of optimism). Luckily, I am off work until next Wednesday and alcohol and sleep permitting will see most of the game.
Despite the India/Pakistan division, they continued to play Test Cricket which I submit has helped improve relations rather than damage them. I have always believed that if the rest of the world had continued to play sport with South Africa and Rhodesia, instead of isolating them, political settlements would have been achieved far quicker and certainly more equitably. You do not get to understand people or their situations, by ignoring them.
JW, Pakistan 21 – 5 at 7 o’clock! 🙂
Arrers, ref. #2 – #5. Mornington Crescent?
Morning J. Good start. 53-7 at Lunch. Time for a kip. Wake me up in 40 minutes.
53 for 7 at lunch…Paks building a winning lead then 😦
More truth than you perhaps realised at the time Bravo. England now 7 for 2 in reply to Pakistan’s 99 all out.
Arrgh!
Sipu, you heard it here first 🙂 (I hesitate to ask if Strauss and Pietersen might build an actual partnership?)
Reference my last, that would be a ‘No,’ then… However, England have the lead, woohoo! Prognosis. England make a 1st innings lead of 100, Pakistan score 150 in their second innings. Pakistan bowl England out in the final innings for 5 1/2 runs, 25 no balls, 5 byes, 7 leg byes and a dozen vegetable samosas.
Bravo, yes. No balls should do it!
Hi Bearsy
Obviously, I did not enjoy it in the slightest but all credit to the pair of them. More worryingly, I have long had a theory that England are only ever good at one major team sport at a time. If one team is doing well, the other two are usually mince.
Take 2003 as a random example. Rugby England beat Oz to win the World Cup, while Cricket England and Football England both get stuffed by Oz teams.
Depressingly, as Cricket England appear to be going into the mince phase, that has to mean that one of the other two is bound for glory.
I really, really, really hope that England are going to do well in the finals of the European Football Championships in June.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am well aware that Scottish teams are uniformly and consistently mince, except for curling.
Curling. Is that a game for Scottish hairdressers?
Janus: Curling is not a game for sissies, one needs big stones to curl (two 40 pounders for each team member).
Mr Mackie: It is a strong recollection from my time in Canada that their curling teams (men and women) usually “minced” all comers.
… sweeping all before them.
LW, them’s big stones! For your comfort the sport is featured here in the Arctic throughout the season. 🙂
It seems I was a little inaccurate in my prediction for Pakistan’s second innings…I wonder if I’ll get eh England second innings right?
LW, good morning. Aye the Canucks are OK at the game apart from all that nonsense with rink litter which they caused when they introduced those appalling corn brooms .
Honours are pretty even, to be fair. They’ve only won the World Championship 33 times. We’ve done that 5 times and they are a much bigger country than us. Look at the runners-up! They’ve managed a paltry 8 and it’s 19 for us. Added to which, they’re probably all Jocks by descent anyway (hopefully not from the same line as Dan Parks) and, as we were all saying at Murrayfield yesterday, ‘It’s no loss what a friend takes.’.
For Southrons unfamiliar with the game, here’s an explanation from a German website.
‘The Roaring Game’ Click on ‘History’. I particularly liked:-
‘The ancient Scotland was a poor country. The Citys hadn’t got a lot citizens, no public traffic existed, the land was poor and only within some months useful. So, the only occupation of the Scots was to thrash the British or steal some sheeps of the neighbor’s clan. But at all times, they did sports. The hooligans were probably a scottish invention, because 1457, the scottish parliament prohibitted Soccer and Golf (!) because they aroused riots. Curling wasn’t endangered by this prohibition allthough the rocks were great to hit an opponent.’
Good Morning Mr. Mackie, Speaking of Canada and corn brooms, here’s the only OTHER game I know that is played on ice without skates. A great way to pass a long winter afternoon.