About the Bookstore Browse Aisles Search Desk Shopping Basket Book Trade Terms Just Released! Return Policy Help Here is the full reference card for this book... If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113. Village Idiots? An Affair with English Cricket by Tim Wade 146 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0436; ISBN 1-4120-2608-3; US$18.00, C$21.50, EUR15.00, £10.50 A gently mocking view of English village cricket by an Australian (the 'Old Enemy', no less) who has been bewitched by its grace, charm, and sheer otherworldliness. Read more! about the book      about the author      Table of Contents and excerpts      catalogue info About the Book Village Idiots? is a series of essays on cricket generally (and English village cricket and customs in particular) by an Australian who has played the game for over 30 years in Melbourne, Singapore and London. The vehicle for these observations is the author's adopted English Village cricket team in Henley-on-Thames, with whom he has played for three years and scaled the giddy heights of Vice Captaincy. It contains reflections on staples like Afternoon Tea, English Weather, English Pubs and Touring. It also explores more 'contentious' subjects like Declaration Cricket, Women Supporters, the LBW Law and Captaincy - all in a light hearted way. This book should appeal to lovers of English quaintness and quirkiness in general, and cricket in particular. It is a gentle mocking from one of the 'Old Enemy', who has penetrated (and become besotted with) middle England, and English village cricket, and bravely attempts an 'outside, in' look at modern England through the prism of one of its oldest traditions. 'I enjoyed the spirit hugely...It is quite charming' Jeremy Paxman 'A cracking read' Henley Standard 'A joy and a delight' Sir Roger Carrick (former British High Commissioner to Australia) About the Author Tim is a 40-year-old businessman who was driven to diarising on his cricket adventures while enjoying a two-year sabbatical in London with his family. This has included a Masters of Philosophy at Cambridge University, which inevitably afforded him too much time to play, and pontificate on, the game of cricket.

Table of Contents and excerpts

Contents

1. Foreword. How an Australian came to Turville Park Cricket Club (and what this means for the international cricket balance of power)

2. Cricket ...Why, exactly? (Turville v. West Wycombe)

3. The Language of Cricket (Turville v. Stonor)

4. 'It's Character Building' (Turville v. Hambleden)

5. Declaration Cricket - Noble Art or Magnificent Con? (Turville v. South Oxfordshire Amateurs)

6. English Pubs (Turville v. Archery Tavern)

7. Cricket Tragics (Turville v. Invalids)

8. Captaincy (Turville v. Brightwell cum Sotwell)

9. LBW - Scourge of the Modern Game (Turville v. Harpsden)

10. Touring (Turville in France)

11. Pre-season Training (Shiplake College Nets)

12. Afternoon Tea (Turville v. Woodcote)

13. English Weather (Turville v. Medmenham)

14. English Villages (Turville v. Hambleden)

15. Village Cricket Partners (Turville v. Ibstone)

16. The Business of Village Cricket (Turville v. Checkendon)

17. Wormsley Estate - A Class Act (Turville Vice-Presidents)

September. Cold. The last match of the 2001 season. A good turnout, as we are all starting to worry about the looming winter break, and the impact this enforced hibernation will have on us as finely tuned athletes (Turville's average age for this game is unhealthily north of 40). What becomes of modest fitness levels? Do they become immodest? Brazen?

Our captain for the day is Barnaby, as our regular skipper, Paul Girdler, is having a week off. Paul is in love, which is delightful, but she is not a cricket fan. He is therefore going through that elaborate mating ritual of marking out the importance of cricket in his life, and his unstinting devotion to the cause of Turville Park Cricket Club. In other words, he has said nothing, and has completely abandoned us for sex. He'll come around.

Barnaby wins the toss and inserts the opposition on a soggy wicket in a light drizzle (given it is our last game, we would probably have played in a monsoon). The decision to bat is largely a matter of self defence, as the wicket behaves alarmingly, and our rather pedestrian attack looks unfeasibly threatening.

One of the features of playing on turf wickets in England is of course their unpredictability. One of the features of bowling on these wickets is, as any part time bowler will tell you, to take full credit for this unpredictability. It is a noble art, depicting - largely through elaborate gestures and pained facial expressions - the enormous skill you have just employed in causing a ball to deviate off a ridge on the pitch which the part-time groundsman has simply failed to roll out. In truth, you know you should be grateful simply to have pitched the ball somewhere in the batsman's vicinity.

After a few desultory overs of bowling on my part, during which time my theatrics fail to dislodge (much less entertain) any opposing batsmen, I am relieved of duty and find myself once again gazing at England. The setting is a snug field in the hollow of a gently sloping valley in the high achieving County of Buckinghamshire. The ground is incongruously positioned nearby to the 'Hellfire Caves', a local tourist attraction of deep underground passages created by the founder of the notorious Hellfire Club. Asign on the approach to the ground heightens the incongruity to almost surreal levels, as it advertises the 'Hellfire Caves and Tea Rooms'. I'm not making this up. ('Another scone, Prince of Darkness?')

On this afternoon, the light rain enhances the green-ness of the vista at the West Wycombe ground, and there are the statutory sheep grazing contentedly on the hillside. The nearby estate manor is large, but slightly austere, with what look like battlements. With the Romans safely accounted for, I imagine that perhaps these defences are designed to ward off the ever encroaching British motorways. I could be wrong.

It is at this point that I am observing the time honoured practice of wondering 'what on earth am I doing here?' It's cold. The cricket is unremarkable. My family is happy and warm at home. I have a million things to agonise over ahead of a busy week at work (I am still a stressed out salaryman at this stage). Then, in the middle of an English field, after more than 30 years of unquestioning devotion to this whimsical game, the answer presents itself. While I'm confident that many before me have uncovered this simplest of truths, most likely more rapidly than me, it is quite a Damascene moment. Not altogether religious perhaps, but can it be a co-incidence that - at the same time - the rain lifted, a distinct glow suffused the valley, and a West Wycombe batsman stepped on his own wicket to give us the breakthrough we were looking for? The surprising thing is that my discovery didn't mature over time. It just arrived. I almost expected the animated God from Monty Python's 'Holy Grail' to appear in the sky and say brusquely 'Of course it's a good game!'

I enjoy cricket because it is unhurried, gentle (in the sense that that word informs the term 'gentleman'), gracious, and slightly quirky. In the main, these are not features of an otherwise stressful modern existence.

Perhaps most importantly, a game of cricket forces you to relax. You are a captive, not audience (anyone can watch sport), but participant in this activity. I can't make a mobile phone call, or check my emails, or read a newspaper, or agitate over the next exciting new instalment of 'teenage rearing'. I am a happy and willing part of an activity that is in turn part game, part leisure activity, part art, part contest, part psychotherapy, part theatre and part cultural experience.

The game requires just enough concentration to keep out unwelcome workaday contemplations, but not so much that you could possibly overlook the charm of your surroundings. I suspect that there is also something just a little liberating about pursuing an activity which is so obviously 'cult-ish' in public, and in broad daylight.

Although overwhelmingly languid, there can still be moments in cricket when tensions rise and the adrenalin courses through the veins ('can I balance a sandwich while holding both a scone and a cup of tea at the same time?'). But much of the charm of cricket lies in the reversion to long periods of enforced solitude, with the opportunity to reflect on how to turn your epiphany into a money making book writing exercise.

While not critical to the enjoyment of cricket, during quieter moments like this I often find myself pondering exactly what 'it' is. Terms like 'sport' and 'game' are functional, but seem inadequate in properly describing cricket. 'Contest' is better because it captures wider notions - not only the physical exertions, but also the battle of wills, and the struggle with oneself. But in the end, this phrase is a little too gladiatorial. 'Pursuit' is too bland, 'Undertaking' too grim, 'Endeavour' a bit too workmanlike. On balance, I decide to settle on 'Affair'. While it contains a number of different connotations, for me there is enough of a hint of romance, elegance, action and business to portray the richness of cricket. So, every week I cheerfully explain to Ruth that I am off to pursue my affair with cricket. Every so often I'm sure she wonders if this is code for something silly. She's right of course, but it's no code.

Compare cricket with almost any other team sport, and its uniqueness becomes even clearer. It is possible to spend six hours engaged in a cricket game, sometimes with as little as just a few minutes of truly active physical involvement. That cricketers put up with such a low 'reward' for effort ratio means there must almost by definition be a wider appeal in taking part in the game. While this is not a justification in itself, it is nevertheless a remarkable detail, especially when the game's extended playing time makes it so unfriendly to partners and families.

Other sports, like football, tennis, squash, bowls, basketball, baseball (for example) all require close attention from each member of the team, over a much more concentrated period of time. This is fine, but robs these sports of any real mental therapeutic value. Even golf demands consistent and constant physical activity (usually of a particularly unrelaxing kind). Other pursuits - say fishing - may compare in terms of their 'sedentar-iness' but typically fail to capture either the team oriented spirit of cricket, or what might be described as its 'noble lassitude' (you understand I am now fully immersed in my 'romantic' phase. That's as Neville Cardus as it gets for now).

Many view the sheer lack of productivity and obvious 'reward' from cricket as daft (see above, the 'what on earth am I doing here' camp). But it's actually part of the point. Even if I'm wrong, the next nearest form of 'activity' that I can think of would involve lying in a hammock for six hours, and then going to the pub for a few beers with some mates.

There's no way Ruth is going to let me get away with that ...

West Wycombe managed to compile just 120 runs in very difficult conditions. Turville was happily able to overtake this total before the darkness descended, both over the ground, and over Season 2001.

At the end of my first year in England, I had found a new home, and made some new friends. But I had only just begun the task of unravelling the mystery of village cricket. Who knows, perhaps there was a sinister side simmering unseen below the surface? (you know the sort of thing - fake cream on the scones?, beer watered down at the pub?, barley fields hiding a massive marijuana crop?). I somehow doubted it, but was determined to find the truth.

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