The Land of Cricket
Cricket Country. By Edmund Blunden. (Collins. 8s. 6d.)
Boors published in wartime tend to divide themselves into two classes, war books and nostalgic books. This boOk is in the latter class. Even Mr. Blunden has hardly .ever written anything with more exquisitely balanced feeling in more charmingly phrased lan- guage. Through the mystique of his own devotion to the cult of that graceful and aristocratic god whose chief altars are found at
•
Lord's and the Oval, but whose glory is also served on village pitches and greens up and down the country and even in the narrow back streets and asphalt playgrounds of our towns and cities, Mr. Blunden reveals to the reader far more than his own cricketing recollections. He has far more to tell than memories or criticiims'of the dead Popes and Saints of his cult, far more than theories regarding the practice and worth of the cult itself Behind and through all he has to say shines faith in and love of a yet greater mystery—England. For that is what, as the title perhaps reveals, is really the subject of this book. ' And the language and thoughts of a votary of cricket seem particularly suited to praise and describe the subtle spirit of that strange and lovely country which nowadays has tended to be swallowed up in " Britain." Thank God, the Test Matches are still fought between " England" and Australia ; it is." England " on thcise occasions which the posters inform us is " in danger," and may the day be far off when we read that "Britain " is all out for less than the necessary sum of runs.,
It is curious and, I think, significant that so many poets should have been so strongly attracted to this national game. Mr. Blunden gives many of them honourable mention in his book and he even '
touches upon the kind of . special problem which has always been productive of a certain fascination. In a historic though leisurely match between some Elysian XI and our earthly " Estate," played rather to the rhythm of a Ballet des Champs Elysees by Gluck than to the applause of any ordinary crowd, in such a match what place in the Elysian team would Francis Thompson have occupied? Perhaps I do his shade an injustice, but I cannot but feel that he would have been absorbed in that communion of heroic longstops of whose precise individual gifts Mr. Blunden I am sure is an expert but kindly critic. It is such minutiae which interest the real cricket scholastic, and who shall say he is not justified when his devotion can produce Such books as Cricket Country to charm -,and proselytise those amongst us to whom cricket is still " the unknown god."
The game is full of virtue, and it is as well at this time that we should be reminded of it. Beauty, grace, dignity, ,a classic air, moderation, endurance, courage, justice itself—the true..cricketer's ideal is not very far removed in its different phriseology from that of Chaucer's " very parfit gentil knight." As a spectacle and oas a game cricket is full of nobility, a nobility which is not so common in our lives that we can afford to neglect so potent an example of it, This is a beautiful book beautifully written, a contribution, as might have been expected from Mr. Blunden's pen, not merely to cricket literature but to English literature itself. It will give great pleasure to many, and not least to those who are not cricketers. I had all but advised those foreigners now .in our midst and desirous of a better understanding of our country and ourselves to read it. Few books contain more real information about England and the English. But, for that very reason, there. are few books whose real meaning the foreigner will find it harder to elucidate. So good is Cricket Country that from the foreigner's point of view it is only a restatement of the mystery which he will continue to find incom-
Previous page
