Cricket breaks down Israel boundaries

Moments before, the small group of boys and girls had been milling around a patch of hardened sand, on their unauthorised encampment in the southern Israeli desert, the Negev. Now, courtesy of five Englishmen, who have just spilled out of a van, carrying plastic wickets, plastic bats and tennis balls covered in electrical tape, they have been corralled into playing an impromptu game of cricket. Somehow, it works. The children may not realise it, but almost immediately they are experiencing the pleasure of thumping an on-drive through deep mid-wicket.