The issue of class is woven into the history of cricket like no other sport. As a non-contact game, it was more socially acceptable for the English upper classes to play alongside the working class. It was a shared sporting endeavour but without the potentially awkward physicality of rugby or football. Thus cricket helped forge the powerful English myth of social cohesion across class divisions: the blacksmith bowling to the Lord of the Manor on the village green. Snobbery...
Today new guest writer Jon Kuhrt explores a subject I’m sure is dear to all our hearts … I play cricket each week on a ground where the game has been played since 1743. A couple of weeks ago, a group of local children came past the ground. We are used to hearing comments shouted out, but on this occasion something particularly struck me. One teenage girl turned to her friends and said: ‘What game even is that?’ Think cricket is boring? I understand that. Shouting ‘You’re s**t...
