A Cricket Shelf

However, the time alone, even brief ones, are important for the settling of the mind and the soothing of the nerves.

Reading, thinking, meditating and writing are very solitary activities. Unless a batsman is opening the innings along with a partner, or a person a member of a group book club, these respective exercises are undertaken alone. While “tablet,” “ipad” or television screens often make for shared viewing, a book is normally read by oneself. As for writing, since even fewer are inclined to this form of recreation, all the more it can be a lonely enterprise. But oh how it sharpens the mind.

The essays I have collected in this slim volume have all been read, mulled over or written mainly because they connect in some way, even if obscure, two normally distant points – that of cricket and books. I must acknowledge that this point of connection will not be readily evident to others, and so I am obliged to explain them here.

Many years ago, I borrowed a book from the Marine Parade public library written by an American on English cricket. The author was Mike Marqusee, and his book Anyone but England: An outsider looks at English cricket (1994). Born in America in 1953, but living in England since 1971, Marqusee became a cricket fan and wrote lucidly and perceptively about a game he had not understood before but had come to love. Marqusee died in 2015. I never owned a copy of his book but did find an innovative article he wrote posted online, “Why Do We Play Cricket?” I reproduce it here. The wide-eyed sense of awe for the game replicates itself in this essay.

The next series of articles all have to do with the books spawned by the game. A variety of cricket writers attempt to pin-point their favourite book, an undertaking ultimately doomed to fail, as evidenced by the concessionary list of “next-best” books! However, the ESPN cricinfo writers are very perceptive and their reasoning very entertaining. We are brought back down to earth by Stephen Moss’ critical piece of how the last century actually witnessed a decline in the quality of cricket writing, because there was suddenly too much of cricket writing. However, Roland Ryder does well to quell our disappointment with an exposition on the stabilising effect of the presence of cricket’s premier almanac – WISDEN, founded in 1864 during Queen Victoria’s reign and still going strong. In Ramachandra Guha’s captivating personal recount of a lifetime spent in search of the best cricket books, we are glad to discover that the game transcends political ideologies. The section ends with a somewhat lengthy piece by Gideon Haigh, who begins by attempting to piece together what really happened on 5 March 2003. Haigh is probably the foremost literary commentator on the modern game. His personal bibliography of books written is impressive indeed. Best of all, his writings do live up to expectations.

In the next section of essays – just two – I explore the intriguing subject of contradictions in the game. The “starting” questions here to ask ourselves are – is cricket more a team sport or an individual match? Which matters more? – brains or brawn? Where and how does the notion of manliness figure in a game for “gentlemen”? Is cricket really that gentle after all?

The final group of essays are of deep interest to me. Though born after Singapore’s independence, I am none the less a product of Empire, and so is the game of cricket. The British Empire sprinkled the game lavishly all over the world. It is played principally in the ex-colonies or present dominions of Britain, though increasingly taken up in non-Commonwealth countries such as South Korea, Germany and Argentina. And as the Age of Empire faded and receded in the face of growing nationalism, the transition proved to be at best, rocky and uncertain, and at worst, violent and gruesome. However, the game of cricket has outlasted the Empire. Where in previous generations it was played exclusively by the Europeans, today it is a multi-racial and international sport. And yet, it can never really free itself totally from some of the taints, spots, ugliness and tantrums of the imperial past. The current debate, often heated, over racial quotas in post-apartheid South Africa is a vivid reminder that the legacy of Empire still needs to be confronted and negotiated. And when Tony Greig, the captain of England, promised to make the West Indians “grovel” in 1976, all the ugliness of Britain’s colonial heritage boiled over uncomfortably.

However, the Empire had many positives too – the English language, Westminster-styled parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, and – cricket. The world has changed in many ways since “The Fall of the British Empire,” whenever historians say that was. Cricket reflects those changes. The game is played at the highest levels by both genders, new innovations have improved and sped up the game, making it more accessible to a present generation. Test matches and rankings are no more dominated by the “white” nations; and players themselves have now transcended the game itself to become leaders, advocates and role models, more socially conscious than ever before, as Kumar Sangakkara, Sri Lanka’s very wily and highly intelligent captain, eloquently explains in his MCC Spirit of Cricket Lecture in 2011.

In the end, England lost the 1976 series to the West Indians. Tony Grieg sportingly accepted defeat by a superior team, and ended up sinking to his knees towards the end of the last test at The Oval, grovelling to the large Caribbean crowd. He had made his peace and his tacit apology for an awful misuse of a single word was accepted.

The Empire was over. The game moved on, having risen but as yet far from falling.