A Quote From ... Archive

Organized Loafing

'Personally, I have always looked on cricket as organized loafing' said the future Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, in 1925; nearer our own time, Robin Williams gave the view that 'Cricket is basically baseball on valium'. In 1994 Denis Compton commented wryly on Brian Lara's record-breaking score, 'I couldn't bat for the length of time required to score 500. I'd get bored and fall over', and the Conservative politician Lord Mancroft might have had something similar in mind when he suggested that cricket was 'a game which the English, not being a spiritual people, have invented in order to give themselves some conception of eternity'. The 19th-century writer Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown's Schooldays said simply, 'It's more than a game. It's an institution', but some enthusiasts have been more measured. Max Beerbohm, approached for a contribution to W. G. Grace's testimonial, said warningly, 'It's not in support of cricket but as an earnest protest against golf.'

Cricket quotations often seem to support the idea of a leisurely thoughtful game, played out (as Orwell said) among 'long shadows on county grounds', but perhaps it should also be remembered that even here practical considerations may arise - as in the story that an umpire who had called 'not out' after W. G. Grace was unexpectedly bowled first ball, explained his decision to the bowler with the words 'They have paid to see Dr Grace bat, not to see you bowl'.

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