Cricket in unusual places

Cricket, under the world

No, we're not talking about the Ashes. This particular match took place 'down under' in a more literal sense. Down under a mountain, in a slate mine, in Lake District - a mountainous region in northwest England. Two village teams, Threlkeld and Caldbeck, were involved in the game, widely believed to be the first underground cricket match.

Honister Slate Mine hosted the game, a fundraiser, amid a network of underground tunnels inside the mountain Fleetwith Pike. And if everyone on hand had to wear hard hats it was because of the 2000ft of rock and slate above their heads, not because a flurry of sixes were expected - there were no designated boundaries in the match and the batsmen had to run all their runs, resulting in a middling target of 28 from six overs for Caldbeck to chase. The team made light work of it, winning with 10 balls to spare.

Cricket

Cricket from the stone age?

A visit to the National Museum of the History of Sport in Orkney gives all the ammunition necessary to fight the phrase 'it's just a game'. The exhibits describe how intricately sport is tied with other spheres like entertainment, art and science, writes Alan Tyers, in the Telegraph. In addition, the display, called Tutenkhamen's Tracksuit: the History of Sport in 100-ish Objects, provides evidence of cricket dating back a surprisingly long time.

Among the museum's treasures are this skeleton of the so-called Head Down Man, believed to be the first Stone Age cricketer. Preserved in a mixture of peat and his own bile on a Yorkshire moor, he was interred with some sticks of rhubarb, probably a totem for use in the afterlife.

The Vatican Cricket Club

The cricket team that shoulders a billion hopes? No, we're not talking about India, but cricket's new converts - the Vatican. With ecclesiastical records numbering members of the Catholic church at around 1.2 billion worldwide, the ICC, in their bid to expand the game, would sure welcome the news of the Vatican being interested in cricket.

And that's what it seems to be, with the Pontifical Council for Culture announcing plans to form cricket teams - one for men, made up of priests from around the world, and a women's XI comprising nuns. Australia's ambassador to the Vatican, John McCarthy, a former SCG Trust member, is helping to put the teams together, and hopes to organise a match against a Church of England XI.

Cricket, McCarthy said, was already popular in Rome, with priests and religious arriving there from around the world, and the Vatican's teams would draw on talent from everywhere cricket is played. "Internationally one would have a team representing the Vatican drawn from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies," McCarthy told Vatican Radio. "We are looking for Sri Lankan, Indian or Pakistani sisters who have played cricket and if they are found, they certainly will be invited to join the [women's] cricket team."

England cricket

Etching culture on cricket bats

The Guardian recently published a series of photos based on the works of Prefab77, a Newcastle-based collective of artists, who have laser-etched vintage cricket bats with various designs, to represent themes inherent among English cricket fans.

Cricket in unusual places

Cricketing postcards from Estonia

In an article for Wisden India, Sara Torvalds, a Finland-based cricket fan, recounts a cricket tour that began with a comment to an online over-by-over session, of England's third Test against India in Kolkata, on the Guardian, and ended with three teams on a cricket pitch in Tallinn, Estonia. Along the way, she also shares her evolution from a person who knew nothing about the game to a person who became a Steven Finn supporter 'in a land of Finns'.

It took me more than a year of reading the cricket reports of various British papers. I started following the over-by-over reports on the Guardian's site, and found that the pace of the game opened up for me there. Wikipedia explained words like 'crease' and 'duck', and the various manners you could be 'out' according to the Laws of the game. And then, during England's tour of West Indies in early 2009, I suddenly understood cricket.

"Brilliant. It's utterly brilliant. It's like chess, but with real people," I remember thinking. "And you have to factor in the weather and how the ball behaves in different countries, and the fact that grounds are not uniform in size…" It hadn't been love at first sight, but I was in love now.

Indian cricket

Tendulkar set for PITCH debut

Sachin Tendulkar has been on TV screens around the world for over two decades but he's now set to make his debut in animated form - as part of a new series called 'Master Blasters.' Tendulkar will travel the world in his "spaceship cum stadium", playing cricket matches with and against some of the best cricketing talent on offer. He even has his own arch rival, Peter, who looks to humiliate the hero at every turn.

In the series, Tendulkar is appointed by the Programme for International Training of Cricket Heroes (PITCH) to run a training camp for the finest young cricketers around the world. Tendulkar will feature along with an assortment of twelve kids, with the series promising elements of comedy, life coaching, and of course, cricket. Tendulkar says he was a Superman fan in his youth; here's his chance to live yet another dream.

Australian cricket

Madeira's latest sporting star: Moises Henriques

Chris Barrett from the Sydney Morning Herald explores Moises Henriques' connection to his Portuguese birthplace, Madeira, which he shares with star footballer Christiano Ronaldo.

Australia's tour of India might not be a water-cooler topic at Madrid's Bernabeu Stadium, where the world's second-best footballer makes his living, but the Australian all-rounder's exploits are not going without recognition on the Portuguese island from where he and Ronaldo hail.

The round-ball game, not cricket, is the leading sport on Madeira, off the west coast of Morocco. Yet word of Henriques's outstanding Test debut on the subcontinent will make its way to that part of the North Atlantic if his father has anything to do with it, no matter if no one there knows reverse-swing from a reverse-sweep.

Cricket news

A sub-zero World Cup

Come Sunday, six teams will compete for the sixth unofficial Snow Cricket 'World Cup', in Montreal, Canada. Organised by the Pirates of the St. Lawrence Cricket Club, the tournament will see more than 60 members of different nationalities take the field in sub-zero conditions.

"The challenge is as much about not losing fingers as it is about maintaining line and length," says Angus Bell, the founder of the Pirates club. Bell is no stranger to odd cricket pitches. He first played on cricket on ice in 2005, inside a former Soviet missile factory in Estonia while researching his book, Batting on the Bosphorus: A Skoda-Powered Cricket Tour Through Eastern Europe.

The six teams in this year's tournament - Canada, England, Australia-NZ, African Alliance, Asian Bloc and the Celts - will play each other in a Super Six group. A Kyrgyz lady and an Andorran cricketer are expected to take the field on Sunday, giving the tournament a global feel. Bell is backing Canada to win this year's edition. "All the men have been growing beards to protect their faces from the cold, so I know they're taking it seriously," he says.

English cricket

Cricket's parting of the waves

While not quite a miracle, it is certainly an unusual occurance that allows a cricket match to be played in the middle of the sea. Every year, the tide in the Solent estuary recedes sufficiently to reveal 200 yards of the Brambles sand bank.

Since 1950, Island Sailing Club from Cowes and Hamble-based Royal Southern Yacht Club have ventured out in boats, waiting for their pitch to appear to begin an eight-a-side contest in the middle of a shipping lane.

With the pitch likely to deteriorate, teams favour winning the toss and batting first, although the outfield is likely to become damper in the second innings, affecting the quality of the ball.