It’s not every day that village league cricket makes it onto the BBC News at Ten, nor indeed creates a worldwide media storm, so when it does the story making the headlines must be important.
And so it turns out to be because the furore that is taking place surrounds allegations of cheating in a game played in the Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League.
What appears to have happened is that a member of the Saltburn Second XI, fielding at first slip, clicked his fingers at the precise moment the ball passed the outside edge of an opposition batsman’s bat, the sound fooling the umpire into giving the batsman out caught behind.
And that’s just not cricket.
But before we burn not only the bails but all six stumps – and the perfectly risen Victoria sandwich that formed the centrepiece of the afternoon tea – and, whilst presenting their charred remains, declare the demise of sporting behaviour in the game that, above all others perhaps, is supposed to epitomise a sense of fair play, let me tell you of another, less widely reported cricketing incident that also occurred recently. Because it suggests that news of its death has been hugely exaggerated.
It took place in a game played between the, to my mind, ludicrously named Trent Rockets and Birmingham Phoenix. Taking a risky second run, Mitchell Santner had to dive to make his ground at the non-striker’s end and was judged to have done so successfully by the umpire. But Santner was not so sure. And so, despite the decision going unchallenged by the fielding side, he himself asked for it to be reviewed. Which it was – the result being that he was given out and so had to make his way back to the pavilion where he subsequently watched his team lose.
Now it would be easy for me to make a snide remark about how, given that Santner was playing in ‘The Hundred’, the result was of absolutely no consequence – but I won’t because it is heartening indeed that a competition that I and many others see as nothing more than a commercial enterprise designed to maximise monetary gain has nonetheless retained, in one individual at least, a sense of fair play.
Because irrespective of what our rogue slip fielder from up north thinks, cricket should be played for the joy of playing cricket – not merely for the joy of winning. And it should be played fairly too. Because quite apart from the fact that a victory brought about by cheating is hollow in the extreme, if we limit ourselves to the momentary pleasure of our fleeting triumph, we will simultaneously deny ourselves the enjoyment to be had in playing in games that we lose.
And something similar could be said about life. Because if all we are interested in is what we are able to achieve, if all we are concerned about is what we come to acquire, our pursuit of the extraordinary will leave us dissatisfied with the everyday.
Life then should be lived for the joy of living – irrespective of whether we come out top. And it should be lived with integrity too. Because quite apart from the fact that success at the expense of others is no success at all, if we limit our enjoyment to what we manage to accumulate in our three score years and ten, we will discover that our happiness will be far less than we’d imagined and shorter-lived than we’d hoped for too.
Cricket then – like all sport – is able to teach us how to live well. Its importance lies in the fact that, whilst the game itself doesn’t in the least bit matter, the way it’s played does – and all the more so in a world where, as the BBC also reported, there is much going on that is of far greater concern than the outcome of a game played by those hitting a variably coloured ball with a piece of wood.
Because if we can’t play fair when nothing of real significance is being played for, how will we fare when the stakes are very much higher?
The all too obvious answer is: very badly indeed. Which is, in turn, a very great shame – in a world that would be a good deal happier if those who inhabit it cared more about how they lived than whether or not they won.
Other cricket related posts:
To read ‘With four-day cricket in mind’, click here
To read ‘The true meaning of cricket’, click here
Cricketing blogs from 2025:
To read ‘The Untold Story of Finals’ Day’, click here
To read ‘Only A Day Away’, click here
To read ‘No smoke without fire’, click here
To read ‘Importantly, why cricket doesn’t matter’, click here
To read ‘I Spy Somerset’s 150th Anniversary Season’, click here
To read ‘A Spring Watch’, click here
Cricketing blogs from 2024:
To read ‘Reasons to be cheerful’, click here
To read ‘First of the Summer Wine’, click here
To read ‘Safe and Sound at the County Ground, Taunton’, click here
To read ‘Is Cricket Amusing Itself to Death’, click here
To read ‘A Purr-fect day at the cricket’, click here
To read ‘Worth Every Penny’, click here
To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2024’, click here
To read ‘One Fine Day’, click here
To read ‘WWFD – what would Freddie do?’, click here
To read ‘A Shady News Story’, click here
To read ‘The Abolition of County Cricket’, click here
Cricketing blogs from 2023:
To read ‘20 Things we have learnt this summer’, click here
To read ‘When rain stops play’, click here
To read ‘Only a game’, click here
To read ‘The Hundred: is cricket amusing itself to death?’, click here
To read ‘The Somerset Cricket Emporium – 2023’, click here
To read ‘for the third time of asking, CRICKET’S COMING HOME…surely’, click here
To read ‘Twas the week of the final’, click here
To read ‘Sharing the important things: on introducing your grandchild to cricket’, click here
To read ‘Somerset v Nottinghamshire T20 Quarter Final 2023’, click here
To read ‘Breaking News’, click here
To read ‘Lewis Calpaldi – Retired Hurt?’, click here
To read ‘Cricket: It’s All About Good Timing’, click here
To read ‘Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife’, click here
To read ‘Online criticism: it’s just not cricket’, click here
To read ‘Cigarettes, Singles, and Sipping Tea with Ian Botham: Signs of a Well Spent Youth!’, click here
To read ‘A Historic Day’, click here
To read ‘Cricket – through thick and thin’, click here
To read ‘Stumpy: A Legend Reborn’, click here
To read ‘my love is NOT a red, red rose’, click here
Cricketing blogs from previous years:
To read ‘A Cricketing Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story’, click here
To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Deseted Cricket Ground’, click here
To read ‘Brian and Stumpy visit The Repair Shop’, click here
To read ‘A Tale of Two Tons’, click here
To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here
To read ‘A Somerset Cricket Players Emporium 2022’ click here
To read ‘A Cricket Taunt’, click here
To read ‘A Song for Brian’, click here
To read ‘At Season’s End’, click here
To read ‘A Day at the Cricket’, click here
To read ‘The Great Cricket Sell Off’, click here
To read ‘On passing a village cricket club at dusk one late November afternoon’ click here
To read ‘How the Grinch stole from county cricket…or at least tried to’. click here
To read ‘How Covid-19 stole the the cricket season’, click here
To read ‘A Cricket Tea Kind of a Day’, click here
To read ‘Life in the slow lane’, click here
To read ‘Frodo and the Format of Power’, click here
To read ‘If Only’, click here
To read ‘I’ve got a little CRICKET list’, click here
To read ‘Eve of the RLODC limericks’ click here
To read ‘It’s coming home…’, click here
To read ‘A Song for Ben Green’, click here
To read ‘Enough Said…’, the last section of which is cricket related, click here
A Jack Leach Trilogy:
To read ‘For when we can’t see why’, click here
To read ‘WWJD – What would Jack Do?’, click here
To read ‘On Playing a Blinder’, click here
To read ‘Coping with Disappointment’, click here
And to finish – a couple with a theological flavour
To read ‘Somerset CCC – Good for the soul’, click here
To read ‘Longing for the pavilion whilst enjoying a good innings’, click here
Some musings 