P.G.Wodehouse on Cricket

[CoverDrive]

My favorite author on cricket in his inimitable style. http://www.online-literature.com/pg-wodehouse/3350/ some of the passages are quite wise given that it was written quite some decades ago

There are misguided people who complain that cricket is becoming a business more than a game, as if that were not the most fortunate thing that could happen. When it ceases to be a mere business and becomes a religious ceremony, it will be a sign that the millennium is at hand. The person who regards cricket as anything less than a business is no fit companion, gentle reader, for the likes of you and me.

[Mariyam]

Cricket needs brightening up a bit. My solution is to let the players drink at the beginning of the game, not after. It always works in our picnic matches.

[Prakat]

Hah. Good times. Many a sultry summer night during hols was devoted to his school boy stories (the golden bat and the one about boxing) and I can't say I could have done better.

[ganeshran]

George Bernard Shaw

The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.

[CoverDrive]

another favorite bit from the piece

I have made a special study of last-wicket men; they are divided into two classes, the deplorably nervous, or the outrageously confident. The nervous largely outnumber the confident. The launching of a last-wicket man, when there are ten to make to win, or five minutes left to make a draw of a losing game, is fully as impressive a ceremony as the launching of the latest battleship. An interested crowd harasses the poor victim as he is putting on his pads. 'Feel in a funk?' asks some tactless friend. 'N-n-no, norrabit.' 'That's right,' says the captain encouragingly, 'bowling's as easy as anything.' This cheers the wretch up a little, until he remembers suddenly that the captain himself was distinctly at sea with the despised trundling, and succumbed to his second ball, about which he obviously had no idea whatever. At this he breaks down utterly, and, if emotional, will sob into his batting glove. He is assisted down the Pavilion steps, and reaches the wickets in a state of collapse. Here, very probably, a reaction will set in. The sight of the crease often comes as a positive relief after the vague terrors experienced in the Pavilion.

his golf stories are really good