‘There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight – Ten to make and the match to win – A bumping pitch and a blinding light. An hour to play and the last man in.’ – Sir Henry Newbolt
As the English summer slowly wanes and the first leaf fall heralds autumn, so passes another season of cricket.
With the England team’s series victory over India bringing much needed joy to admirers of Alistair Cook and his charges, this summer’s matches reminded me of the quintessential role that cricket plays in the English imagination.
Few things are more evocative of England than cricket (perhaps equalled only by strawberries and cream!)
The sport of Grace, Hobbs, Botham and Flintoff with its timeless intricacies – so bemusing to foreigners – helps to define who we are as a people.
A game of style, discipline, patience, and comradeship, cricket has become a proxy for decency; ‘it’s just not cricket’, though a tad archaic, remains a resonant charge, and we continue to mark age by whether so and so has “had a good innings”.
Certainly, as a nation, we have long known that it is our duty to ‘Play up, play up and play the game!’
Despite increased commercialism, and with it a shift towards the shorter form of the game, the awe and romance of test cricket – the patient ebb and flow of a contest between bowler and batsman, the turning of a pitch, the supreme tactical insight – remains unrivalled by any sport or similar competition.
In what other game are participants expected to play the conditions as much as the opposition; reading the wicket and the weather, and adapting tactics accordingly? In what other sport can a draw result from a five-day contest?
The appeal of cricket lies, too, in its classlessness; a great leveller – think Douglas Jardine and Fred Trueman – crossing society like an apparently effortless cover drive reaching the boundary.
That the duration of a test match allows so much room for extraordinary narratives to develop explains why – uniquely amongst sports journalism – writing about cricket has become such an art.
Close to home we have our own special cricket history; the former Wisden Cricketer of the year, and captain of Essex CCC and of the England team which won the 1911 Ashes, J.W.H.T. (aka Johnny) Douglas – who also won a gold medal for boxing at the 1908 Olympics – was schooled in Moulton, honing his cricketing skills on the glorious ground which remains at the heart of the village.
The same field of play is the venue for the annual charity cricket match between the Lords & Commons XI (which for the day I captain imperfectly!) and the Moulton Harrox Irregulars, which has raised over £15,000 for charities and good causes since its inception 15 years ago.
We couldn’t have done so without the continuing support of my friends in the Moulton Harrox Cricket Club and all those who have supported the event.
As the nights draw in, the weather turns and test cricket moves to warmer climes, we dream of countless innings yet to come.
