History of cricket

Whenever cricket in fiction is discussed, the first book mentioned is Hugh de Selincourt's The Cricket Match. That was published in 1924; J M Barrie called it "the best story about cricket ever written." The book that will challenge that claim - Netherland by Joseph O'Neill - was published this year. From the intricacies of village cricket to the subtleties of international cricket is a giant leap, and fiction has been lagging behind fact..

In 1754, Benjamin Franklin returned from England carrying with him a copy of the 1744 Laws of the Game, and soon cricket was firmly established in America. It was among the first outdoor sports played there. The US v Canada match in 1844 was the first international encounter as we understand the term today. America's greatest player, the fast bowler John Barton King developed the outswinger, and on a tour of the Gentlemen of Philadelphia at the turn of the 20th century, he headed the bowling averages in England..

By the time King retired, cricket was in decline; baseball had taken over as America's most popular sport. In the 21st century, cricket survives among Indians, Pakistanis, West Indians and Sri Lankans but just below the consciousness level of the Americans. "You want a taste of how it feels to be a black man in this country?" a character asks in Netherland. "Put on the white clothes of the cricketer. Put on white to feel black." By ignoring the melting pot in their backyard, America has both suffered and caused much suffering..

"If the French nobles had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants," wrote the historian G.M..Trevelyan, "their châteaux never would have been burnt." Perhaps if George W Bush played cricket...

When an Irishman born in Holland, educated in the UK and settled in the US (one of whose grandfathers is Turkish, just to make the mixture more fascinating) turns to cricket as a metaphor for post-9/11 America, you recall Johnson's story of the dog walking on its hind legs: the wonder is not that it is done well, but that it is done at all..

The protagonist Hans van den Broek, a Dutchman, drifts through the novel while things happen to people and places around him. He befriends Trinidadian Chuck Ramkissoon whose mission is to civilize America through cricket. "Americans cannot really see the world," he says, "They think they can, but they can't. Look at the problems we are having. It's a mess, and it's going to get worse.."

Netherland is not a smooth read - it jumps back and forth in time, and while addressing the big themes it glosses over the smaller, personal ones. But to write an epic in 256 pages takes rare skill, and to pack it with such despair and hope while signposting the way forward for the novel as a form - taking it from the post colonial cul de sac to post-national open-endedness is a stunning achievement..

Some of the descriptions match anything Cardus wrote ( to digress, isn't it strange that Americans have written some of the best cricket in recent years - Mike Marqusee, and now Joseph O'Neill?)

Netherland is a layered book about acceptance too. Hans, the only White man in his club is o grew up on the principle of "keep the ball down." Lofting it is a compromise, a sacrifice of the fundamental duty of the creation of beauty at the altar of success. "You've got to hit the thing in the air," Chuck tells him, "How else are you going to get runs.? This is America. Hit the ball in the air, man.."

"It's not how I bat," Hans protests. Yet he finally bats like that. And then "everything is suddenly clear" and at last he feels "naturalized.."