Cricket has given rise to much light verse

by A.C. de Silva

CRICKET: The game of cricket has given rise to much enjoyment to the young to spend their time in a profitable manner to read about the cricketers of the past about their deeds. After all cricket is a game of “glorious uncertainties”.

Cricket literature was fortunate in its beginnings as cricket itself was. The early game found Dr. Grace. Here it was who made it a national institution. There was a lot of cricket literature coming into the market and the younger generation lapped it all up. There were many people who couldn’t play the game because of ill health and other reasons. There was this gentleman by the name of Thomson born in a Lancashire town in 1859 who lived in poverty and he died of tuberculosis in 1897. There was not a day in his life he seemed to be happy, yet this man who however had triumphing stanzas about the game cricket he seemed to cherish:

“O world invisible, we views thee,
O world unknown great lovers touch thee
World many, touch thee attracted by colour

that by hitting thee, many a heart is glorified by the coffers that hold thee!

There was leavening of humanity in that particular man who should feel anguish at the thought of Dr. W.G. Grace, G.F. Grace and E.M. Grace helping their country – Gloucestershire overwhelm his Lancashire in the north of England, where England’s great cricketer Sir Neville Cardus dived.

Yet the most famous poem in the history of cricket literature is a tonic for cricket lovers.

“This day of seventy-eight they are
come up North against thee
This day of seventy eight, long ago!
The champion of the centuries,
he cometh up against thee,
with his bretheren, everyone
a famous foe!

The long-whiskered Doctor, that
laugheth rules to scorn,
While the bowler, pitched against
him, bans the day the day he was born,
And G.F. with his science makes
the fairest length forlorn;
While the bowler, pitched against him,
bans the day that he was born;
And G.F. with his science makes
the fairest length forlorn,
They are come from the west work thee woe”.

Firstly: It is a rebuke to those who consider cricket a ‘job-opportunity’, amenature battle. On the century, this cricket was a way of life card can be again.

Secondly, it is the game’s finest trophy; a poet, and such a poet, withdrawing his thoughts from foreknowledge, will and fate to dwell on the run-stealers flickering to and fro.

Thirdly, they do cricket wrong who would degrade it in the innumerable ways modern civilisation honours of.