It's just not cricket

Falkland Cricket Club sits in a quiet corner of semi-rural West Berkshire.  As venues go, it doesn’t get much better.  The perfectly manicured ground boasts a county-quality wicket, the western edge of the ground is lined with poplars which then drops away to reveal a magnificent country landscape.

The Bowler’s Arms pub and restaurant operates from the ground, serving a selection of draft ales and a menu that delivers a great British pub experience.  On any given weekend throughout the summer, a short stroll is rewarded with a well-earned pint that comes with the additional bonus of entertainment in the form of a game of cricket.  The reassuring hum of summer is augmented with the occasional thwack of leather against willow followed by polite applause from the dozen or so people lounging around the boundary.  It is a defining example of Englishness and it is difficult to imagine a more genteel celebration of the game that is the world’s second largest spectator sport with an estimated 2.5 billion followers.

This scenario unfolds across hundreds of English parks each week; loungers or blankets are laid out and devotees of the sport relax and enjoy the air.  There is an etiquette that accompanies this scene.  Silence is generally observed as the bowler runs towards the batsman, and the most cardinal of sins would be to walk behind the bowler as he runs in to deliver the ball.  Any movement behind the bowler is very off-putting to the batsman, who’ll likely take a step back to signal that play should halt.  In that moment, there will be tuts of disapproval from the spectators that are almost audible to the transgressor.  If the protagonist was a newly walking toddler, it would quite probably be the only time in its life that its parents would discourage these fledgling efforts.

I was at a match on Wednesday where I sat behind two English gentlemen – at least, I’m assuming they were English.  For the eight hours we watched the game they did not speak to each other (or anyone else), move from their seats, eat, drink, or acknowledge any of the play on the field before them.  As an exercise in self-restraint, it was remarkable.  As a demonstration of Englishness in cricket spectating, they achieved a zenith, albeit I was tempted to check each chap for a pulse.

This performance is even more remarkable given that the game was a one-day international played in London at The Oval between Bangladesh and New Zealand as part of this year’s Cricket World Cup.  I was one of a smattering of Kiwis in the ground, a little more vocal than the fellas in front of me, with a willingness to show appreciation of players’ performances, occasionally muttering, “Nice shot,” or “Well bowled,” at appropriate times.  I even stood to clap a couple of particularly excellent moments in the game, doing my best to be non-partisan, which is considerably easier when your team is doing well, as the Kiwis were at the time.  Ordinarily in such situations, the supporters of the team that is underperforming is reduced to silence or at best, quiet lamentation.  Not so the Bangladeshis; they operate to a somewhat different set of rules.  The support for their team was relentless.  Every scurried single was celebrated as though the ball had crossed the boundary rope.  If their team was wavering, which they often were, they banged drums, waved flags, encouraged, cajoled and generally abandoned all forms of restraint. 

They came in their thousands.  The Oval holds about 25,000 spectators and the Bangladeshi diaspora was out in force, occupying two-thirds of the ground.  About two hours from the end of the game, the two people next to me left the stadium and no sooner had they vacated their seats than green-clad Bangladeshi supporters took their place.  It was as though they were reproducing in the stands.

Bangladesh batted first and their team put 244 runs on the scoreboard.  For those familiar with the game, the Kiwis should have easily chased that score and completed the task with little bother.  This view was evidenced by the absence of many of the Bangladeshi fans from their seats when New Zealand started their run-chase 30 minutes later.  During the first few overs there was a quiet trickle of supporters returning to their seats, the tell-tale white plastic of an empty seat gradually giving way to another green-clad torso.

New Zealand’s opening batters started at quite a clip, scoring 35 runs in the first five overs and in the face of the Kiwi onslaught, the Bangladeshi fans were finally rendered silent.  Until that is, Shakib Al Hasan bowled a good length ball outside the off stump which Martin Guptill promptly despatched down the throat of Tamim Iqbal.  The place erupted.  The noise was extraordinary and not remotely English.

There could not have been a greater contrast to the reserve of the two chaps before me.  I suggest they probably disapproved, but it was impossible to discern given their emotional retardation.  I suspect that, amid the Bangladeshi joy, they may have tutted – loudly.

The Bangladeshi celebrations continued unabated and intensified when a short while later, Colin Munro succumbed to the same bowler after an excellent catch by Mehidy Hasan.  That brought Ross Taylor to the wicket to join his captain, Kane Williamson, and between them, they whittled away at the supporters’ enthusiasm.

The noise in the stadium gradually abated as it became clear that the New Zealanders were on course to secure an easy win, but as all the worst sports pundits will say, ‘It’s a funny old game’.  Bangladesh came roaring back and so, quite literally, did their fans.  Two wickets fell in the 32^nd over and another four fell as the innings progressed, with three of those going near the end of the game, the last with New Zealand still six runs short of Bangladesh’s total.  The Kiwis clung on for a dramatic win.

The tension in the ground led to the most extraordinary atmosphere I’ve ever experienced and thanks to the fans in green, the cacophony was brilliantly unrelenting.  Through all of it, the two gents before me remained unmoved, no doubt thinking that this sort of behaviour is just not cricket.

I agree, it’s much better than that.

Twitter: @GOMinTraining
Copyright © Craig Brown, 2019
7 June 2019