Cricket--the ever changeful changeless-game…it's a ritual which concentrates the English summer as nothing else can…The strenuous alliance between devious mind and skilled muscle…is the art of Cricket.
--The Summer Game
Cricket! The very word casts a spell. Cricket! There is magic in the air. It makes one dream of hazy summer days and memories of youth when one robustly engaged in what one now, in life's winter, can only reflect on and reminisce about. Cricket! The eternal vision of happy faces in the glorious sun, an immortal melody that lingers when long evening shadow are cast athwart the greensward and all and sundry wend their way to farpavilions.
Cricket is a ritual that concentrates--nay, encapsulates--the English summer as nothing else can. There are many now spread all over the globe able to look back over the years and distill the pleasure of a life of singularly rich and varied experience.
Anyone who has ever had one moment's enjoyment from cricket, whether from personal action, some flashing stroke that clings like a burr to the memory, or exultation in the excellence of others at village, country, or national level, cannot but feel a desire to offer some tribute to the game, as did Gerald Brodribb in The English Game--An Anthology of Cricket:
"'Tis Cricket I sing, of illustrious fame, No nation e'er boasted so noble a game
Cricket is only incidentally a game. It is primarily an institution that contains within itself a mirror of the character of a nation. Its appeal lies in the affirmation of a code of conduct and values and while the language of its dynamics is technical, the language of its reminiscence is sheer poetry. James Love, quoted in The English Game--An Anthology of Cricket, rhapsodized:
Hail cricket! Glorious, manly, British Game! First of all sports! Be first alike in fame…
The roots of cricket are deep in English history. As Sir Neville Cardus wrote in his Memories, "Like the British Constitution, Cricket was not made; it has 'grown.' Its rules and general legal system tell of the English compromise between individual freedom and corporate responsibility…"
Cricket's appeal indeed lies in the affirmation of a code of conduct and in the cultivation of the virtues of honesty, dignity, and responsibility. Lord Harris, commenting on the accepted use of a simple phrase in Parliament, sermon, platform, and common conversation, wrote that "the psychology of the game is accurately condensed in…those few words "That is not Cricket'…to dub something as not being fair, not honorable, not noble. What a tribute for a game to have won, but what a responsibility on those who play and manage it."
Cricket is a nonverbal pastime. No player may make any noises while the action is hot underfoot, as when the batsman awaits the bowler's delivery. The noise comes afterwards when the sequence is over, notably in appeals of "Howzat!" in the hope of claiming the batsman's dismissal. This, coupled with the obvious noncontact nature of the game, has tended to develop
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