It’s an office-divider, a personality diviner, a barometer, milestone and litmus test. Where do you stand on cricket? Its increased popularity post-Ashes (2005) has made inroads into the national consciousness, but has done little to change the essential polarity of opinions around it, which some argue with surprising vehemence.
A ridiculous simile is needed, in order to cohere my thoughts on it:
Cricket is like modern art.
There, I’ve said it.
Why is cricket like modern art? Because it’s like this: many people who are very much into it, care for its history and future and follow it all round the world (group #1) can talk for hours and hours about the techniques, interpretations and significance of modern art/cricket.
Others (group #2) will give it a go, say ‘I don’t get it’, have scorn poured on them by group #1, which they will listen to reluctantly, say, ‘Yeah, but I don’t get it, it’s boring and shit,’ and then go off and do something they do enjoy.
Group #3, a reasoned, well-balanced confident lot, will not pay too much attention to the ins and outs of the thing, but realise that there isn’t anything to ‘get’ beyond them getting what they want out of it. For them, the art may look nice, make them think of things, make them wonder on life’s infinite joys and tragedies, make them go ‘that colour is LUSH’ or ‘isn’t that an odd shape how on earth did the artist create that’, but the main point is that they treat art as everyone should – a subjective experience. Similarly with cricket.
There are rules aplenty, tedious rituals too, and traditions and bye-laws to keep the custodians of the game really very busy indeed. But for the spectator – every spectator, no matter their level of knowledge – a day spent watching county cricket is this: a day out of the house under the pretext of constructive activity, which is actually spent lolling about on the edges of a beautifully well-tended field, whereon various people move about photogenically in all-white attire. The action can be ignored or pored over; you can return home sober and rested, or half cut and dishevelled; you can browse the stalls, shops and hog roast vans, or you can sit in your chair reading all day.
What's going on? It doesn't really matter - have another drink, why don't you.
On top of this all, there is an excellent game going on, although you are not particularly coerced into following it with the same avidity as the ‘proper’ fans. I know that it’s extremely easy to fall into the Wodehousian lexicon when extolling the virtues of a hard summer’s day spent doing next to nothing by a cricket pitch, but if the sun’s shining, you’ve got a nice drink nearby (the bar’s never far away at county cricket grounds) and a good book on, the emerald green of the sward as vividly-coloured as any Elsworth Kelly (you see? It works, it works), there is very little sense in disavowing the attraction of the game. Yes.