Colin D Gordon

Many years ago,the comedian Groucho Marx was invited to watch a  match at Lord’s  Cricket Ground in London.  Halfway through ,he asked: “When does it begin?”. Even now,foreign residents in the UK are often completely baffled by the game’s rules. Throughout the summer,  the country’s 3,650 officially registered  ‘green spaces’  appear  to be full of men dressed in white standing around doing not very much,taking frequent breaks for tea, cucumber sandwiches,scones & jam or running for cover from the rain. Founded in 1300 during the reign of King Edward  I cricket is,though, more popular than ever as a participant sport. Most of the 22,000 villages in England & Wales have at least one team,often entering regional competitions such as the ‘Jolly’s Drinks Cornwall Cricket League’. The players tend to be either local inhabitants or celebrities and business people who have bought property in the area. Some rock stars from the 1960’s (notably Mick Jagger) are renowned cricket enthusiasts. Bill Wyman (ex-Rolling Stones),Roger Waters (Pink Floyd),Mike Rutherford (Genesis) and guitarist Eric Clapton have all played for Bunbury Club in Surrey.

For commercial reasons,however,cricket at the national level has been undergoing significant changes. The ‘4-day County Championship has been described as ‘The British concept of eternity’. The ‘crowds’ have been gradually dwindling  to less than a few hundred people in stadiums with a capacity of over 6,000. The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) recently announced the inauguration (beginning 2010) of an English Premier League (EPL) based on the ‘Twenty20’ format. Each side will have one ‘innings’ and bat for a maximum of 20 ‘overs’, lasting around two & half hours. Twenty20 Cup matches have already attracted large attendances both in the UK and abroad: Middlesex v Surrey at Lord’s: (26,000).  Australia v India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (84,041). The objective in cricket is to score more ‘runs’ (points) than the other team. This is achieved by hitting the 163g leather ball with a 1.4kg willow bat as far as the boundary  for ‘4’ or over it for ‘a six’. Alternatively,if the two batsmen  successfully exchange positions by running to the opposite ends of the 20.12m pitch, they increase their total by one. A batsman is  ‘out’ if the ball is caught,if he is judged by  one of the two umpires to be ‘lbw’ (blocking the trajectory of the ball by putting a leg in front of the wicket) or if the bowler’s delivery hits the wooden stumps and displaces the two wooden ‘bails’ balanced on top. In Twenty20,if a match is drawn the result is decided by a ‘bowl-out’ similar to ‘football penalties’.

Cricket is no longer ‘just baseball on valium’ (actor Robin Williams). The game has a huge following in Commonwealth countries. India,Pakistan and Sri Lanka (but not England) are currently considered to have the best national teams.The 2007 Cricket World Cup in the West Indies was televised in over 200 countries to 2.2 billion viewers. Attendances at India’s new Premier League matches have averaged 58,000.  The longest rivalry in world cricket,however,is  between the English and Australians. In1882,the game’s inventors were defeated for the first time ‘at home’ by their Antipodean challengers.. It was the cricket equivalent of Hungary’s 6-3  football victory over Engand at Wembley in 1953. According to legend ,English cricket (symbolised by two wooden bails) was cremated and the remains placed in a small urn kept ever since at Lords Cricket Ground. Every two years the two countries play each other for these ‘Ashes’. Australia lead by 121 ‘Test Matches’ to 95. England won in 2005 but then lost all five in the series last year.

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