An article posted to The Economist today makes it very clear why the commentators on Test Match Special (Sir Geoffrey excepted) are so horrified by the idea of Twenty20. There is a meme in the UK that holds that watching cricket is the preserve of upper middle class men (and a few of the more intelligent of the aristocracy). If money is allowed into the game, it will be because cricket starts to be watched by commoners (and perhaps even women), and being common (or female) they won’t know how to behave. Oh horror! (And yes, this is very like HP Lovecraft’s inability to cope with New York.) Needless to say, this sort of class-based attitude is not replicated in other countries where cricket is played.
3 thoughts on “The Economist on Cricket”
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Oh, man. I wish I had the Lovecraft-pastiche chops and the cricket know-how to write that.
…preferably somehow involving the “Spartacus” scene from the Economist article.
Ah yes, I can see it now. A uniformed steward approaches the crowd on the West Terrace at Headingley.
“OK, so one of you lot is Great Cthulhu and you’ve been putting off the umpires by gazing balefully at them and causing them to go insane. I’m going to have to eject you from the ground. Own up. Which one of you is it?”
At which point various members of the crowd who have all hired a particular Pirates of the Caribbean fancy dress costume jump to their feet shouting, “Ia Cthulhu!”.