Cricket – ‘the greatest thing God created on Earth’ – in a handful of quotes

APOLOGIES for a cheat of a column, but I’ve always wanted to include playwright Harold Pinter’s quote on cricket, so today’s the day – along with a handful of others.

“I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God created on Earth, certainly greater than sex, although sex isn’t too bad either.” –

Pinter Harold

“Don Bradman will bat no more against England, and two contrary feelings dispute within us: relief, that our bowlers will no longer be oppressed by this phenomenon; regret, that a miracle has been removed from among us. So must ancient Italy have felt when she heard of the death of Hannibal.” –

RC Robertson-Glasgow

“What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” –

“I can’t really say I’m batting

CLR James

badly. I’m not batting long enough to be batting badly.” –

Greg Chappell

“Ray Illingworth has just relieved himself at the pavilion end.” –

“Cricket civilizes people and creates good gentlemen. I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe; I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen.” –

Shaw Brian Johnson Mugabe Robert

“Cricket is a game played by 11 fools and watched by 11 000 fools.”

– George Bernard

“Heroes, in fact, die with one’s youth. They are pinned like butterflies to the setting board of early memories – the time when skies were always blue, the sun shone and the air was filled with the sounds and scents of grass being cut. I find myself still as desperate to read the Sussex score in the stop-press as ever I was; but I no longer worship heroes, beings for whom the ordinary scales of human values are inadequate. One learns that as one grows up, so do the gods grow down. It is in many ways a pity, for one had thought that heroes had no problems of their own. Now one knows different!”

Warne – Alan Ross

“Cricket to us was more than play. It was a worship in the summer sun.” –

Blunden Edmund

“Part of the art of bowling spin is to make the batsman think something special is happening when it isn’t.” –

Shane

“Nearly 30 years since his only tour of Australia, mention of Tavaré still occasions winces and groans. Despite its continental lilt, his name translates into Australian as a very British brand of obduracy, that Trevor Baileyesque quality of making every ditch a last one.” –

“Batting, for once, in his accustomed slot at No 3, Tavaré took his usual session to get settled, but after lunch opened out boldly. He manhandled Bruce Yardley, who’d hitherto bowled his off-breaks with impunity. He coolly asserted himself against the pace bowlers, who’d elsewhere given him such hurry. I’ve often hoped on behalf of cricketers, though never with such

Gideon Haigh

intensity as on that day, and never afterwards have I felt so validated. Even his failure to reach a hundred was somehow right: life, I was learning, never quite delivered all the goods. But occasionally it offered something to keep you interested.”

Gideon Haigh Gideon Haigh –

“As an ersatz opening batsman, Tavaré did not so much score runs as smuggle them out by stealth.” – “Some years ago I adjourned with a friend to a nearby net for a recreational hit. On the way, we exchanged philosophies of cricket, and a few personal preferences. What, my friend asked, did I consider my favourite shot? ‘Easy,’ I replied. ‘Back-foot defensive stroke.’ My friend did a double take and demanded a serious response. When I informed him he’d had one, he scoffed: ‘You’ll be telling me that Chris Tavaré’s your favourite player next.’ My guilty hesitation gave me away. ‘You Poms!’ he protested. ‘You all stick together!” –

Gideon Haigh (a very Australian writer)