27 August 2015
Scotched
by J R Thomas
When you consider its pleasures and advantages, it really is astonishing that cricket in England is not even more popular. Admittedly, matches that can go for five days without a clear result do not really conform to the modern taste for things that are quick, decisive, and sharp; but in the summer, on a Saturday or Sunday, what can be more agreeable than a seat in the sun, or the shade if you prefer, from mid-morning until the sun slips behind the distant tower blocks, in a supremely relaxed atmosphere, with a good-natured crowd and endless – indeed prodigious – quantities of beer?
All-day sporting contests occur elsewhere, Wimbledon for instance, though there beer is frowned on and the fashionable drink is that strange mixture of mild curry sauce and fruit salad known as Pimm’s. But the seats are tiny, not designed for the generously laid-out gentleman who prefers ham sandwiches to strawberries. In fact, so jammed in are the punters that there is no choice but to closely follow the action, thousands of heads swinging from side to side like giraffes on a march across the savannah. Try looking at that pigeon on the parapet to the left whilst the crowd is watching Murray playing a searing shot to the right, and the sensation of being out of step is quite vertiginous. Then make a joke about said pigeon to your neighbour and feel the full majesty of an umpire and fifteen thousand voices saying “Shush!” in sibilant unison.
Now, at the cricket, if your pigeon joke is worthy enough, not only your neighbour will laugh, but so will a dozen people around you; and they’ll repeat it to their neighbours, until, half an hour later, it will be repeated to you as it completes its circuit of the ground.
That relaxed atmosphere is the enormous appeal of cricket. It does not require endless concentration, sucking of teeth, and terse sensible remarks. If the match is on a knife edge, or a chap is getting close to a century (runs that is, not in age), or the fast bowler is setting new speed records, then some serious and silent attention is polite, but otherwise chatting is positively encouraged, as is beer swilling, checking emails, texting a possible date about possibilities for the later evening, and loudly searching about in the bottom of the refreshment bag for that Crunchie you are sure you put in earlier.
If things are getting slow, with the Captain of the fielding team deciding to slow things up for tactical reasons that are no doubt sound but usually obscure in the extreme, then it is perfectly in order to find things to amuse yourself and your fellow enthusiasts in the stands. A scotch egg, rolled down the gangway, followed by a tomato or two (avoid avocados, they do not roll well and will invite sneering remarks from certain types among the crowd) make for a sophisticated alternative to bowls. As most cricket fans are avid interpreters of the complex rules of the sport, they will be happy to advise how best to apply the LBW rules, for instance, to the Scotch egg whilst it is transported back up the steps. (Game is over when the egg finally frees itself from the sausage meat shell, or if eaten by a drunken passer-by.)
Wandering about is frowned on whilst play is actually going on, as is standing up and stretching, but the multiple opportunities afforded by each over for movement give a gentle rhythm to the stands which mirrors that on the pitch. And there lies the beauty of the game. Not only does it allow civilised life to proceed in an orderly but unrepressed way among the fans, but what is going on the green sward is no less than a sort of ballet.
Cricket buffs may be alarmed at such an analogy, but in truth therein lies the full romance and glory, the true poetry, of England’s great game. It is as close as a chap need ever come to dancing. The gentle rhythms and coordinated moves, the ever ebbing and flowing rearrangements of the field, the contrast between unleashed power at the stumps and the gentle ripples that finally run out near the boundary line. The batsmen conferring in the middle of the wicket, the bowler reflecting as he meanders out to the start of his run in, the umpires making funny faces at each other, silly mid-on scratching himself absently, the ball languidly tossed from fielder to fielder, each rubbing it yet again on the red stain on his upper leg. Sudden dramatic fast action. The whole gentle ritual repeats. All the while the crowd carries beer up the stands and drinks it, chats, and sings and laughs, spontaneously adopts silence as the batsman swings; applauds a four, then drops back seamlessly into telling jokes and eating. It is group dancing done very slowly, with beer. And long may it last.
