Useful Notes / Cricket

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This is not an attempt to describe how cricket is played: refer to Cricket Rules for that, and despair. Instead you'll find here a brief history and background to cricketing tropes as used in fiction. In the interests of being understandable to people who don't know what cricket is (mainly Americans), baseball/softball terms are used for explanations.

If there is one sport in the world that is taken equally seriously, and written about with comparable levels of passion and knowledge, by both a Trinidadian Marxist intellectual and a former British Tory Prime Minister,^note Respectively, C.L.R. James and John Major, who otherwise had about as little in common as it's possible to imagine. it's cricket.

From English tradition to global phenomenon

Cricket has its roots in England, where it developed into a sport associated with traditional English values of decency, fair play, and the Stiff Upper Lip. In fact, it's so well-associated with this that the stock British phrase "that's not Cricket" is often used when someone's engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct. If someone is described as a cricket player or fan, that implies civilised middle- to upper-class behaviour, in contrast to those dreadful soccer fans who spend the match beating each other up. Pass the tea and scones. Cricket does not have traditional class barriers, even in Victorian Britain.^note Though until 1962 some players were certainly more equal than others. Lord Peter Wimsey can take the field alongside the village blacksmith and nobody will raise an eyebrow; and if a working-class fast bowler takes the opportunity to bruise a few noble ribs, it's just a game old chap, no hard feelings. Not that all have equal access to the game, as it requires players have both the space and time to play it, resulting in the majority of English players in the modern age being from wealthier families and privately educated.

When it comes to race, cricket has generally followed society on race issues rather than lead, although both Australia and England refused to play against apartheid era South Africa in The '70s and The '80s and the ICC participated in the international boycott of South Africa until the start of The '90s.

The sport eventually gained such popularity and ubiquity that it became one of the more benevolent exports of The British Empire. Wherever the English went, they cleared a space to play cricket and taught it to the locals,^note Although many instances were of colonisers bowling and batting while forcing locals to "field" by bringing the ball back. who ended up taking it up with more gusto than their colonial overlords. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, and post-apartheid South Africa all have professional cricket leagues and compete with ferocity in international matches (especially when playing against England) to see which country tops the world.

The nations of the Indian Subcontinent—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh—have the most and the most enthusiastic cricket fans in the world. In these nations cricket is a street sport, played by poor kids in villages, cities, and other parts, and is far far removed from aristocratic and white-imperialist imagery. In those countries, professional cricketers are superstars, commanding multi-million-dollar salaries and being sought-after spokesmen for every product under the sun.

In the Caribbean, cricket is also Serious Business, with the West Indies—a joint team that represents multiple Caribbean territories (Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States Virgin Islands)—being one of the most successful in history in both Test Cricket and One-Day Cricket. The team serves as a point of pride for the countries that contribute players as well as a rallying point for regional identity.

In England and Wales (the two share a governing body), cricket remains popular, albeit greatly overshadowed by more glamorous sports like Association Football, Tennis and Rugby Union. Although English cricket players and fans like to say that they are the true stewards of the sport and are best to have ever played the sport, England hasn't had the best success on the international stage. The superiority complex and a stodgy, traditionalist attitude towards playing styles meant that English cricket was slow to advance, whereas other countries developed faster, flashier styles of play that overtook English teams. The fact that England didn't win a Cricket World Cup until 2019 is a testament to that,^note The English went to the semifinals or the final in the first five World Cups but they experienced a steep decline with only making it to two quarterfinals and one super 8 between 1992 and 2019. although England has been quickly working to modernise, developing a more aggressive playing style that emphasises speed and strength.

Even Americans like it (really!)

Despite jokes about Americans fighting a war to get away from cricket-lovers, the game was quite popular in the United States until around the time of The American Civil War, and the first official international cricket match was played between the USA and Canada in 1844 on a field in Staten Island. Anecdotal evidence even suggests that George Washington himself was a cricket enthusiast!^note Although the game may in fact be indirectly responsible for America declaring independence: King George II's son Frederick died after reportedly being hit in the chest with a cricket ball, but it remains unproven to this day that this specific injury had anything to do with his death. In any event, this resulted in George III's accession to the throne. Raymond Chandler, British-educated author of quintessential Americana, was a useful bowler of leg-breaks while at Dulwich College, and during The Golden Age of Hollywood the Hollywood Cricket Club was a much-appreciated reminder of home for many British actors; its membership rolls included such luminaries as Boris Karloff, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant, and David Niven.

In the fall of 2016, even as the Chicago Cubs were winning their first World Series victory in more than a century, Uncle Sam was winning an international cricket tournament.

In the present day, cricket has become popular enough that the United States now has its own professional cricket league, Major League Cricket, and a farm system.

A game in many forms

Cricket is played in many different formats. The most traditional and prestigious form is "test cricket", which often forms the basis of popular impressions of the sport. In test cricket, matches last up to five days with nine hours of play (with each day broken up by a lunch break and tea break) and are played by teams of players dressed all in white (with knit sweaters if it's cold). Considered to be the "ultimate test" of a cricketer's skill, stamina, and mental fortitude, it is contested by the 12 nations which are full members of the International Cricket Council: Australia, England, India, New Zealand, West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Ireland. To be promoted to full member status is a big deal and associate members must fulfill a list of strict criteria to be considered.

Other formats include First-class cricket (matches lasting three or more days), List A cricket (a one-day format lasting up to eight hours), and Twenty20 cricket (an accelerated format meant to played for around three hours). These formats are the ones officially recognised by the ICC and are played at the highest levels.

A first-class cricket match, equivalent to a US NFL or MLB game, or a European soccer league match, is played over four days of six to ten hours each, although three-day games also exist. International (Test) matches, which are actually a subset of first-class matches,^note For statistical purposes, a player's first-class statistics include performances in Test matches. are five days, and is generally considered among cricket buffs and by sportsmen to be hardest cricket and the true form of the sport (and hence the name "test matches"). This is because of the physical strain of having to play nine hours of a single day for the fielding team, and an equally long time for the batsmen, from morning to late-evening. Or whenever the umpire decides the light is too dark for the batsmen to see the ball. What's worse, and more frustrating is that in the long-form version of cricket, you can spend all that time and not even get a result either because of a draw where no result was achieved, or because it started to rain and the entire match is cancelled (which happens a lot whenever test matches take place in England and the West Indies especially, less so in countries where the rain is more fixed to certain clear seasons).

The shorter formats, meanwhile, are more result-friendly, i.e. no chance of a draw (the nearest thing is the rare tie). There are also rules in place in the shorter-form that make it more batsmen-centric and less bowler-friendly, more or less nerfing the latter for the benefit of the former. In recent times, a number of critics have expressed worries that the shorter version of the game is more or less leading to a decline in quality bowling, and especially fast bowling. Fast bowling is the most physically strenuous form of bowling, and has historically been the form of bowling that is the most stylish and entertaining to see (since even when the bowler doesn't get the batsman out, the possibility that he could reach very high speeds provides additional suspense and thrill) and certainly the form that has produced some of the best cricketers in history. In Test cricket, victory depends on bowlers since the only way to get a result is if one side succeeds and/or fails in bowling out the other side's team in two separate innings before they reach a target to win/draw. In the shorter-form victory depends on one side's batsmen outscoring and outhitting the other side, which has led many, including old-time nostalgics, and more recent cricket fans (i.e., the ones who like ODI as well) as feeling that this is the real decline of cricket.

A serious test of skill, strength, and stamina

Cricket is a sport that requires a high amount of grit. After all, playing for nine hours in the baking heat for five days straight is not for the fainthearted. It is also a surprisingly violent sport, with a somewhat odd attitude to physical force. Although physical contact or conduct that may cause injury is Not Cricket, it is accepted, even expected that faster bowlers can, within limits, try to hit batsmen in the groin, body, or head, especially if the batsman is directly in front of the wickets. Considering that fast deliveries can send solid balls made of cork, string, and leather flying at over 100 miles per hour, this is not trivial (also why batsmen wear heavy protective equipment). And unlike baseball batters (who get a free hit and often complain or seek retribution), cricket batsmen hit by balls are expected to take the blows and keep batting and running until they're out.

Specialist batters^note The ICC made "batters" the official term in 2021, though "batsman" still sees wide use. have the highest status in cricket rather than the more hard-working and usually less glamorous bowlers (specialist pitchers)—though the very best bowlers, such as Shane Warne, Jimmy Anderson, Muttiah Muliarathan, Stuart Broad, and Glenn McGrath buck the trend. Like baseball or softball, fielding in cricket involves standing around in the hot sun waiting for a ball to come in your direction, but for much longer periods of hours or even days. In both England and India, aristocratic batsmen were reputed to command their servants to perform their fielding duties for them but that is no longer the case in international cricket. The English firmly believe that they play cricket in a more chivalrous and genteel manner than anyone else, and hence can be excused for being beaten by more aggressive foreigners. As one might expect in international sport, this is despite England producing several successful cricket captains who were every bit as ruthless and conniving as their counterparts elsewhere. True English fans will dismiss the likes of Douglas Jardine as unrepresentative exceptions. Other nations more or less consider cricket another sport the English invented and popularized to the rest of the world (alongside Tennis, Football, Rugby) only to be outclassed by the people they taught the game to. England and Australia have a century-old cricketing rivalry for The Ashes. Matches between India and Pakistan, two countries which were at war as recently as 1971, are also Serious Business and since The Oughties, extremely rare owing to weak diplomatic relations and problems in Pakistan with terrorism. Their actual records if you are curious head to head have Australia and Pakistan having a higher W/L ratio to their respective competitors by matches won, but it varies by special tournaments and series.^note As of the most recent Ashes series in 2023, Australia leads England 34–32–7 in overall number of Ashes series won-lost-drawn, while in the case of India and Pakistan, India has won every single match they have played in the ODI World Cups as of the 2023 WC.

Cricket in fiction

Despite a rich history and widespread popularity, cricket rarely plays a significant part in books and almost never in film or TV. It's also because it's a fairly complex game with multiple genres if you will, each of which is different because of the rules in place, which makes each one unique. This is because it takes so damn long for anything to happen.

Cricket is therefore used in the background or as a personal trait to convey atmosphere and character rather than being the focus. In the UK, it used to be that the best way to watch the cricket is to mute the TV and turn on the radio. This is because of Test Match Special, which is essentially regular sports commentary crossed with Last of the Summer Wine. Given the nature of the sport, you'll likely hear the commentators passing the time with such subjects as various flavours of scones, matches from decades ago, and the species of the bird that's walking across the field. It's an experience like no other. Another reason is because of breaks in commentary for the transmission of The Shipping Forecast for Britain's coastal waters, itself an English institution.

A few cricketing names and expressions will be recognised everywhere cricket is played, although to anyone else they will probably be taken for Stock British Phrases.

• Sir Donald Bradman, aka The Don. A legendary batter batsman, the cricketing equivalent of Babe Ruth or Pelé. His career Test batting average, 99.94—meaning that on average, he scored just shy of 100 runs each time he went to bat^note Had he scored only four in his last innings, it would have been a 100 average. Allegedly, spin bowler Bill O'Reilly, whose personality really clashed badly with The Don's, almost pissed himself laughing when Bradman was out second ball for nought.—is one of the most famous sporting statistics. For perspective, the player who's second on the all-time list (fellow Aussie Adam Voges) is just shy of 62, and most full-time batsmen are well content with a career average of 45. A study done on sports statistics showed that this average is so far off the mean that a baseball batter would have to have a career batting average of .392 (significantly higher than the actual MLB career batting average record, Ty Cobb's .366) and a basketball player would have to score 43.0 points per game (also significantly higher than the NBA career points-per-game record, Michael Jordan's 30.12) throughout their career to equal Bradman's feat. Allegedly, this is the reason the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's postal address is PO box 9994.
  • On a funnier note, "Bradman" is used amongst Australian men in the same way Americans would use the phrase "out kicking your coverage.
• Clean bowled. When the ball goes straight through the batsman and strikes the stumps without being touched. Like tenpin bowling, this also generates a satisfying clatter as the wooden stumps are dislodged. By analogy, anything that goes right through despite your attempts to stop it. The satisfying clatter is also known as the "death rattle".
• Dispatched to the boundary. In the active sense, the batsman hits the ball through the fielders to the edge of the playing area, scoring four runs. By analogy, something that was easily dealt with. In the passive sense, a fielder is dispatched to the boundary either because they have made a mistake or are generally hopeless, and thus are being placed as far away as possible in the hope of keeping them out of the action. This second usage is fading away as in modern cricket the best fielders are often on the boundary, not the worst.
• Hit for six. Hit into the crowd on the full, for six runs, the most possible. Direct equivalent to a baseballer hitting it out of the park (but in terms of conversational metaphor, is used more like 'home run'). The big difference between baseball and cricket though is that the ball cannot be kept by a spectator and must immediately be returned; balls can be hit for six multiple times.
• Lord's. Lord's Cricket Ground, in London, England. The most revered cricketing playing field in the world. Every cricketer dreams of playing at Lord's one day, that is unless you play for Middlesex, who play their home games there.
• Maiden over. An over in which no runs are scored.
• MCC, Marylebone Cricket Club in London. The owner and operator of Lord's, which for decades set the Laws of Cricket and controlled the game.^note To this day, the MCC owns the copyright to the Laws of Cricket, although nowadays the rules are set by the International Cricket Council. Even in England, MCC members are assumed to be stuffy-minded, ineffective establishment grumblers of the most conservative type.
• MCG, or the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia. The equivalent to Boston's Fenway Park and New York City's Yankee Stadium in the Americas, having been on the same site since 1854, in all but the official sense the national stadium in Australia, as that country's most high-profile cricket and Australian Rules Football matches often take place there, along with high-profile concerts and its use as the main venue for the 1956 Olympic Games and 2006 Commonwealth Games, and almost anything where a ball and grass is needed. Owned by the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC—sharing initials and stereotypes with the other MCC).
• Not Cricket. Unfair, against the rules, unchivalrous.
• Rabbits. Poor batsmen, usually specialist bowlers, who seem to be scared stiff any time a ball goes near them. (This is the source of the nickname given to the narrator of the Raffles stories, Bunny.)
  • Exceptionally poor batsmen, even for bowlers, ones who look as though they barely know how to hold a bat, are called weasels or ferrets as they "go in after the rabbits".
  • Night Watchmen. Rabbits (but usually quite good as rabbits go) who come in the last ten overs of the day after a batsman gets out. Most likely to get out in the first five overs on the next day, but some have lasted to make centuries. One famous nightwatchman is Jason Gillespie, who scored 201 runs not-out in a test against Bangladesh. Due to an injury suffered before the next series, this made it his final game as an international player.
  • In the possessive category of sporting rivalry between batsmen/bowler. It refers to a batsman who consistently gets out to a certain bowler, which commentators, wags, and others japing about the batsman having fear of the bowler (e.g., "Darryl Cullinan is Shane Warne's bunny"). The all-time record is Glenn McGrath and Michael Atherton. The former got the latter out 19 times but some qualify this by noting the placement.^note Atherton was an opening Test batsman and McGrath was an opening bowler, i.e., these are the players who are there from the very start of the match for their respective batting and fielding teams, so they would obviously have more encounters with each other than others. It's generally a lot harder and rarer for a bowler who comes after the opening pair (usually fast bowlers because they use the ball when it is newest and most bouncy, with spinners and medium pacers and others dealing with a slower-paced ball).
• The Tail. The last three to four batsmen in a lineup; pretty much the bowlers and maybe the wicket keeper (wicket keepers are nearly always good to decent batsmen, with some being outright superb, in the modern pro-level game, but historically they weren't always so).
  • Wagging Tail. When the tail outshine the rest of the batsmen on a team. There's usually at least one bowler in most international teams who can score a fair amount if they stay in, but are susceptible to getting out fairly easily; otherwise they'd be an all-rounder and put in the middle bit of the order. If they have a good day, beware. And sometimes, even the Rabbits can grit their teeth and pull their team over the line.
  • Tail enders themselves generally fall into two categories:
    • Those who may be limited in their ability to score runs, but who have a reasonable defensive technique and can play support to another better batsman at the other end. These are generally the tail enders who get given night watchman duties when required.
    • Those who may lack the defensive technique of the above but have more ability to score runs - sometimes they have one or two shots they play particularly well or are known for their hitting ability.
• Take guard. Before a new batsman faces the first ball (pitch), they carefully line up the position of the stumps and bowler. By analogy, preparing yourself for some upcoming challenge.
• Sledging. To verbally abuse other players on the field. Can range from horrid racism to genial abuse. Aussies are very good at it. While generally considered Not Cricket, though it has produced some brilliant zingers:

  Australia's Glenn McGrath: Why are you so fat, Eddo?

  Zimbabwe's Eddo Brandes: Because every time I fuck your wife, she gives me a biscuit.

  • McGrath didn't take it well; it's something of a recurring theme, though ultimately sort of justified; his wife Jane died of breast cancer in 2008, having had recurring bouts of it since 1997.
• A sticky/tricky wicket. Unlike baseball, the ball usually bounces once before reaching the batsman. The strip of grass between bowler (pitcher) and batsman on which the ball bounces is called the wicket. (Yes, that's also the word for the set of poles that the bowler/fielders try to hit with the ball.) If this is damp, uneven, dusty, etc. the ball will deviate in strange ways, making batting much harder. By analogy, being on a sticky or tricky wicket is not a good thing.
• A good innings. For a batsman, depends on how many runs they make (and in what fashion) during a particular stay at the crease. But the term can be applied to life in general: someone who has had a long, fulfilling life can be described as having had "a good innings".
• Stumped: If the ball gets past the batsman, the batsman is out of his crease, and the wicket-keeper takes the ball and hits the wicket with it, the batsman is out "stumped". By analogy, means utterly confused and/or clueless. This has of course become general English-language usage, even by people who have no idea that cricket exists, let alone what a stump is.
• Googly: A hard-to-play delivery. Technically, it is an off-break bowled with what looks like a leg-break action (wrist spin), meaning it spins in the opposite direction to what the batter expects. Basically, someone from a cricketing country would use this to mean the same thing as when an American would use the word "curveball" to describe something that is difficult to respond to.
• Doosra: Another hard-to-play delivery, it's the mirror image of the googly in terms of movement, being a leg break bowled with what appears to be an off-break action (finger spin). However, unlike "googly", it hasn't seen any significant non-cricket usage.
• Mankading: A blatant example of an action that is within the letter of the rules, but is considered ungentlemanly (not cricket). Non striking batsmen sometimes take a step or two outside the crease while the bowler bowls the ball, so that he’ll have a shorter distance to run to get to the other end and “steal” one run. But an alert bowler can catch him outside, flick the bails off the stumps on his end and run out the non-striker batsman if said batsman is outside the crease. This action got its name by its first ever prominent use by Indian cricketer Vinoo Mankad. Umpires are generally of the view that while this is allowed, they would prefer that the bowler warn a non-striker batsman that he is straying too far out. If a batsman ignores this warning and is caught straying too far out again, they generally uphold the dismissal. That said, such dismissals generally create controversy at all levels of the game.

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Important Tournaments

• The Ashes
• Border Gavaskar Trophy
• ICC Champions Trophy
• ICC Cricket World Cup
• ICC World T20
• ICC World Test Championship

Fictional cricketers and cricket fans include:

• Cousin Kate (1910): Bartlett accuses Bobby of playing too much cricket when the latter admits not doing his tasks well. Bobby even mentions he used to play the game with Kate.
• The Doctor (GAL), particularly The Fifth Doctor. And in the Past Doctor Adventures novel Spiral Scratch, the Sixth Doctor's last words before regenerating are saying that he's "had a good innings, you know." The Fourth Doctor also had his moments.

  You know I think I'm wasted as a Time Lord; with a talent like mine I would have made a great slow bowler (complete with arm action).

• Arthur Dent (ENG)
• Casey Jones appears to be a cricket fan in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) movie. At least he carries a cricket bat and seems to know the rules. (AMR)
• Sharpe: the title character, despite being working class, is mentioned as having picked up the sport in Yorkshire, with none other than the Duke of Wellington observing that "Sharpe bowls fiendish." (ENG)
• Lord Peter Wimsey (ENG)
• The Raffles series has AJ Raffles, professional cricketer, marvelous spin bowler, and amateur cracksman. (ENG)
• Sergeant Wilson (ENG)
• Most of the heroes (IND) and villains (ENG) in Lagaan
• The title character in Seducing Dr. Lewis and its remake The Great Seduction (CAN)
• Sir Harry Flashman, who scored the first hat trick in cricket by catching out Pilch, Mynn and Felix (through luck, trickery, and outright cheating) in an amateur match in 1842. (ENG)
• Captain Britain and Dr. Faiza Hussain (ENG)
• Will and Rob Willis (ENG/USA), two promising young player fans.
• Both Mike Jackson and Rupert/Ronald Psmith are quite accomplished cricketers, and cricketing plays a significant role in their early stories. (ENG)
• Sgts. Gavin Troy and Ben Jones (ENG (MID))
• Sergeant Lewis (ENG), who gets to play cricket while working undercover in "Deceived by Flight".
• The Hon. Phryne Fisher, a fan rather than a player (AUS)
• The Abbotsford Anglers (AUS)
• Many of the leading characters in the Village Tales series, notably including the Duke of Taunton (ENG (ETON/OXF)), his late, as of Evensong brother Lord Crispin (ENG (ETON/OXF)) (nicknamed "Spin" for a reason), their cousin the Duke of Trowbridge and Warminster (ENG (ETON/OXF)) and his son Lord Corsham (ENG (ETON/OXF)), Taunton's nephew Rupert (ENG (ETON/OXF)), Taunton's old right-hander (his vice-captain at Eton, OUCC Authentics, and OUCC Blues) the Nawab of Hubli (PAK/ENG (ETON/ OXF)), Taunton's butler Viney (ENG) (vice-captain to His Grace in the Woolfonts Combined CC First Eleven), and Taunton's friend and neighbour the Irish-born former England wicketkeeper and current TMS summariser Brian "The Breener" Maguire (IRE/ENG). The Woolfonts village side could give trouble to most Test sides.
• Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, Earl of Asherton (ENG), who provides the page quote.
• Peter and Edmund Pevensie (ENG/NAR), at least in The Movie.
• Ampie duPris ("RSA")^note In Discworld fanfic, it's called Crockett but would be instantly familiar to anyone stepping between worlds. Rimwards Howondaland would also be a familiar place for cricket fans, where proteas grow as a national flower.
• John Steed (ENG)
• Wallace Footrot (NZ)
• The protagonist and antagonist in the 1995 Bollywood film Bewafa Sanam are rival cricketers fighting over a spot in a team as well as a woman.
• Black Butler had cricket serve a signficant role in the academy arc. Ironically, it's the Eaglelander chef Baldroy who explains the basics of cricket to a confused Mey-Rin and Finnian.
  Baldo: Some say baseball's derived from it. Though cricket's the more popular of the two outside of my good ol' US of A.
• Charters and Caldicott (ENG)—they were so popular with audiences that their actors, Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, went on to appear as similar characters in several other films, including a 1949 comedy called It's Not Cricket (in which a cricket ball turns out to be of great significance to the plot).
• The Rt. Hon. Robert Crawley, 7th Earl of Grantham, and his family, servants, and tenants (ENG). The village of Downton runs an annual cricket match, contested between teams put forward by the "house" (i.e., the Earl, his family, and the younger male servants) and the "village" (largely tenants, craftsmen, and shopkeepers of Downton). The village usually wins. The Earl takes the match especially seriously, allowing his temporary valet Barrow to be promoted to underbutler rather than be sacked after his permanent valet Bates returns because Barrow is an excellent batsman. (And, we should mention, overlooking some fairly scandalous behaviour on Barrow's part.) He also all but bullies his son-in-law (and agent of the estate) Tom Branson (IRE) to join the house team (to his relief, Tom—an Irishman who'd never played cricket in his life—is pretty good).
• As expected for a bastion of all things English, All Creatures Great & Small (2020) establishes that most of the characters are absolutely cricket-mad; Siegfried Farnon adores the game (and is quite good himself), his younger brother Tristan was apparently a champion cricketer at prep school, and housekeeper Audrey Hall is so knowledgeable about the game that she does the scoring for the annual village match against Pumphrey Manor. The sole exception is James Herriot (SCO), who prefers football, though he does come to appreciate the game and even turns out to be not half-bad when he has to step in to play at the last minute.
• In the Aubrey-Maturin novels, Jack Aubrey, and most other British officers and crew of the Royal Navy, enjoy a game of cricket, often played as games of more-or-less friendly rivalry between ships. Maturin, being Irish, finds the game incomprehensible and boring, and considers the Irish sport of Hurling to be superior.

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Famous and exceptional cricketers include:

• Curtly Ambrose (WIN)
• Hashim Amla (SAF)
• James "Jimmy" Anderson (ENG)
• Shakib Al Hasan (BAN)
• C. Aubrey Smith (ENG)
• David Boon (AUS)
• Allan Border (AUS)
• Sir Ian Botham (ENG)
• Sir Geoffrey Boycott (ENG)
• Sir Donald Bradman (AUS) (he of the 99.94 batting average)
• Stuart Broad (ENG)
• Jasprit Bumrah (IND)
• Ian Chappell, Greg Chappell, and Trevor Chappell (all AUS)
• Learie Constantine (WIN)
• Kapil Dev (IND)
• M.S. Dhoni (IND)
• Rahul Dravid (IND)
• Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff (ENG), now a presenter of Top Gear (UK)
• Gautam Gambhir (IND)
• Chris Gayle (WIN)
• WG Grace (ENG) (Sure he belongs here. After all, he was God).
• Sir Richard Hadlee (NZL)
• Sir John Berry "Jack" Hobbs (ENG)
• Sir Leonard "Len" Hutton (ENG)
• Sanath Jayasuriya (SL)
• Mahela Jayawardene (SL)
• Mitchell Johnson (AUS)
• Jacques Kallis (SAF)
• Imran Khan (PAK), who was Pakistan's Prime Minister from 2018 to 2022
• Virat Kohli (IND)
• Brian Lara (WIN)
• Dennis Lillee (AUS)
• Clive Lloyd (WIN)
• Lasith Malinga (SL)
• Glenn Maxwell (AUS)
• Glenn McGrath (AUS)
• Muttiah Muralitharan (SL) (But don't say that to Australians!)
• Sunil Narine (WIN)
• Kevin Pietersen (ENG)
• Ricky Ponting (AUS)
• Sir Vivian "Viv" Richards (WIN)
• Kumar Sangakkara (SL)
• Virender Sehwag (IND)
• Graeme Smith (SAF)
• Steve Smith (AUS)
• Sir Garfield "Garry" Sobers (WIN)
• Dale Steyn (SAF)
• Ben Stokes (ENG)
• Sachin Tendulkar (IND)
• Fred Trueman (ENG)
• Victor Trumper (AUS)
• Chaminda Vaas (SL)
• AB de Villiers (SAF)
• Adam Voges (AUS)
• Shane Warne (AUS)
• Steve and Mark Waugh (AUS)

Cricket was their hobby, but they are better known for other things:

• George Washington (ENG/USA), military leader and founding father-cum-first president of the latter country.
• John Major (ENG), prime minister of the UK 1990–1997, picked up the game in childhood and worked in sport governing bodies after retiring from national politics.
• Peter Davison (ENG), actor best known for playing the Doctor in Doctor Who.
  • And indeed Anthony Ainley (ENG), best known as his Arch-Enemy, the Master.
• Paul Cornell (ENG), writer and creator of Faiza Hussain (above). Taught the game to a group of Americans at a convention.
• G. K. Chesterton (ENG), author and spiritual philosopher.

Other:

• C'mon, Aussie, C'mon (Advertising campaign for World Series Cricket and subsequently the Australian team in general)

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