BOOK OF THE DAY: The Spirit of Cricketby Rob Smyth, Elliott Thompson Limited 218pp, £12.99
IT’S THAT time of year again when middle-aged men retreat to their garages to oil their cricket bats and dust off their whites in preparation for the start of a new season.
This springtime ritual is greeted by bemusement in my house. This quickly turns to anger when I begin tuning in to ball-by- ball commentary of test matches on the radio and disappearing every few days to bowl gentle off- spinners in a taverners’ league.
My only riposte is to shrug off the barbed comments, content in the knowledge she simply doesn’t understand “the spirit of cricket”.
This is the title of a new book by Rob Smyth, a sports journalist who writes regularly for the Guardianand Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. He adds the tagline "What makes cricket the greatest game on Earth" to leave no doubt about his commitment to a sport which attracts a religious-style devotion among its followers.
Smyth’s love of the game shines out from every page. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the personalities and events that have shaped cricket over the past three centuries.
He recounts stories about how legendary English all-rounder Ian Botham used to try to neutralise opposing teams with pre-match, rather than the more traditional post-match, drinks. Being “beefied” by Botham was a familiar term for teams visiting Taunton in the mid-1980s, says Smyth.
He also includes a section on Ireland’s famous victory over the West Indies at Sion Mills in 1969 when they bowled out the Caribbean islanders for 25 runs.
“There was talk after that David had not so much slain Goliath as got him blind drunk the night before, although such stories have generally been denied.”
There is a more serious side to the book, though, which sets out to explore the rather nebulous concept known to cricketers as the “spirit of cricket”. In Smyth’s eyes, there is something unique about cricket when compared to other sports because of the gentlemanly manner in which it is played, officiated and supported.
This is perhaps best summed up by the well-worn phrase “It’s not cricket” as a response to bad behaviour.
He provides scores of examples of good behaviour to prove his point. Hard as nails Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist’s decision to walk (acknowledge he had been dismissed) in the semifinal of the World Cup in 2003, despite being given not out, by the umpire is highly praised.
That famous handshake between English hero Andrew Flintoff and Australian fast bowler Brett Lee at Edgbaston following a brutal bowling spell in the critical Ashes encounter in 2005 is held up as a classic example of the “spirit of cricket”.
Smyth also lines up scores of big names past and present such as Ian Botham, Michael Brearley, Duncan Fletcher, Mahela Jayawardene and Richie Benaud to help define what makes cricket the greatest sport on Earth.
Recent ball-tampering scandals involving Pakistan and England in 2006 and the need to introduce video technology to support the umpires suggest cricket is no longer whiter than white.
Smyth also touches on the huge challenges posed by commercialism and Twenty20 cricket. He glosses over former South African captain Hansie Cronje’s life ban for match-fixing and claims of widespread corruption in the multibillion euro Twenty20 Indian Premier League.
These controversies suggest cricket may not remain a “unique sanctuary”, as Smyth suggests, but rather faces the same problems as most professional sports such as football and, more recently, snooker.
This is a book for the cricket lover and offers little for the uninitiated or those sceptics who have yet to be convinced.
Jamie Smyth is Social Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times. He is also captain of The Irish Timescricket team which plays its annual match against the Evening Herald XI on Thursday, July 1st, at 6pm in College Park, Trinity.
