A taste of paradise
Martin Clunes plays a crazy game of cricket on his tour of the Pacific Islands...
Britain has exported the sport of cricket far and wide across the globe. But perhaps the unlikeliest offshoot of the game is to be found in the Trobriand Islands, off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
The Trobriands are Martin Clunes’ first port of call as his travelogue Islands of the Pacific, which was interrupted by the global pandemic, returns for three more episodes.
Honoured guests
Arriving on the islands, the Doc Martin star and his film crew were given a very warm welcome.
‘There are no hotels,’ explains Martin, who goes on to visit the Philippines and Micronesia later in the series. ‘So the villagers built houses for us!’
Martin had particularly wanted to visit the Trobriands after listening to a radio programme about the unusual version of cricket that’s played there.
‘It said that they settle tribal arguments with cricket matches,’ he says. ‘So I thought: “We’ve got to go there, and I’ve got to play in one of these matches!”’
The game was introduced to the islanders in 1903 by a British Methodist missionary and, in the Trobriand version, there’s no restriction on the number of players on a team, and the home side, for whom Martin goes in to bat, is always the winner.
‘I did manage to whack a few deliveries,’ he smiles.
There was another, more poignant reminder of home when Martin received some news during his stay.
‘I got a text from my daughter Emily saying that the Queen had died,’ he recalls. ‘Throughout the following day, elders from other villages came to offer their condolences. That was really moving.’