Lovers of sport need no excuse. Yet there are millions out there, frequently of an intellectual bent, who are bewildered by the adulation given to those who whack balls of various sizes and shapes around with feet, bats, or other implements. But sport reflects society in ways nothing else does. When Middle Eastern potentates began sportswashing their regimes they began with cricket. Some sports have been deeply compromised in this fashion. Yet cricket has not; and this isn’t just because of India.
CLR James wrote that the history of West Indies cricket is the history of the West Indies itself. His first literary work The Black Jacobins was devoted to Toussaint L’Ouverture, whom he described as leading the only successful slave revolt in history. His political life – the bit he thought of paramount importance – dissolved into chaos: ever the fate of Trotskyism. Yet Beyond A Boundary was hailed by John Arlott as the best book ever about cricket. James led the campaign to instal a black captain of the West Indian side. The fact that Frank Worrell was manifestly the best man for the job didn’t hurt. Neither did the incumbent’s equally self-evident incompetence.
James was a friend of Learie Constantine, fast-bowling all-rounder from the 1930s. The latter’s career might well serve as a microcosm of English society at the time. Stifled by racial discrimination in Trinidad he played cricket for Nelson in the Lancashire league. When visiting Lords for a charity match in 1943 his hotel booking was refused on the grounds that the presence of a black person might offend the American servicemen staying there. Constantine was not having any of that and sued the hotel chain. The High Court upheld his claim. When in due time he became Baron Constantine of Maraval and Nelson, the boot was on the other foot with a vengeance. He intervened with some success in the affairs of Seretse Khama, whose marriage to a (white) English typist caused a protracted fit of grumphing and confected outrage. Ruth Khama did have the last laugh, and took an entirely justified delight in visiting stately homes in company with her husband His Excellency Sir Seretse Khama, President of Botswana. (Parenthetically, Khama’s story is one of the bewildering absences from modern discourse. Showing his fellow Africans How To Do Independence was an object lesson his contemporaries entirely failed to grasp. Here, surely, is the true tragedy of the Dark Continent.)
James also wrote about cricket for the Manchester Guardian, which at the time was the unchallenged leader of English journalism. A teenaged Neville Cardus described his first task as a reporter was to cover a lecture given by a female academic in a Mechanics’ Institute in the Pennines. Farmers and labourers had walked for miles thither to hear a woman lecturing on phenomenology. (Yes, really.) One horny-handed son of toil raised a hand and asked the speaker whom she was quoting. Memory having for the moment failed her, she expressed confidence that the gentleman from the Guardian would undoubtedly be able to help out. At that moment Cardus realised what it meant to represent that august journal. He wrote that luckily it was Malthus, which he described as an easy ask. His life’s ambition was to become the music critic for the Guardian. He had to wait for the incumbent’s eventual demise, but he got his wish. He became famous as a cricket writer faute de mieux; but he adorned the summer game with some famously lush prose.
People have already noted the influence of Cardus in my own writing, although I incline more to the works of the late, ill-starred Peter Roebuck. I once won It Never Rains… (his journal of his summer as stand-in Somerset captain in the 80s) in an ABC radio quiz. As soon as the phone number was announced I dialled at once, confident that whatever the question was I would probably know it. Like Cardus, I was fortunate: it was an easy one. Which Australian bowler recently made his maiden fifty for Kent? Terry Alderman. At that stage in my life I followed county cricket, and barracked for Clwb Criced Morgannwg (Australians love the underdog. It’s who we are, really) and rejoiced when a third pennant finally arrived in 1997. Roebuck was only too aware that cricket and politics are inextricably entwined, but in his cricket writing he managed to keep his prose light and sparkling.
Like his fellow West Countryman Sir Terry Pratchett, he was both English and Australian, and understood both countries rather better than those who only England (or Australia) know. Cricket builds bridges between societies. Late this month we shall be touring Sri Lanka: a land of comparable population, British heritage, and starkly different polities. The patron saint of Sri Lankan cricket is Kumar Sangakkara. Who no longer plays, but was and is a heroic figure without parallel in the cricketing world. Invited to Lords to give the annual Spirit of Cricket address, his oratory caused the port-encrusted denizens of the Long Room to give him a standing ovation. Unlike at least one of his contemporaries, he has not ventured into government. Many Sri Lankans probably wish he did.
We play cricket our own way in Australia. It has taken nearly a century for us to escape the oppressive penumbra of Bradmanism. The Don was very much a man of his time. If you’ve a taste for iconoclasm, Malcolm Knox’s book Bradman’s War is a cautionary tale of how not to play the game. The Seventies ushered in a distasteful era of cricket as trench warfare. The best captain Australia never had was John Inverarity: a stern Caledonian schoolmaster who had no time whatever for sledging. Yet the cricket he played, and the sides he led to victory, were as hard as anyone who has ever played the game. The secret of Pat Cummins’ team is that they play the game as Inverarity played it: polite, relentless, and tough as prehistoric footwear. Forget woke. Woke has nothing to do with it at all.
That is probably quite enough philosophy for now. Here is a tale of forgotten Australia to lighten your day, in case you have never come across it before. Jack Fingleton didn’t write it. But it is a tale from his metaphysical time: the age of Victor Trumper (a sort of fragile Captain Carrot) and Arthur Mailey (First he bowled tripe, then he wrote it, now he’s selling it). A more innocent age of dust, heat, comradeship, forgiveable sharp practice in the WG Grace mould, and a cold beer afterwards: