Cricket in an English sitcom of the 80s
The Old Batsman blog reminisces about a cricket match in Ever Decreasing Circles , an old, English sitcom
Nikita Bastian
25-Feb-2013
The Old Batsman blog reminisces about a cricket match in Ever Decreasing Circles, an old, English sitcom. Bored wives on the boundary and the unchallengeable away umpire were all part of the mix.
It's equivocal and bittersweet, and for the time, brilliantly done. The cricket match is equally well observed: it rings with scenes and characters familiar to any club player – bored wives on the boundary, no spikes in the pavilion, the crooked, unchallengeable away umpire; even those distant and long-gone tropes the home-knitted jumper and the club kit bag. I'd say John Esmonde [the writer] was a fan: alongside the Compton/Mann scene, Paul walks into bat with a Jumbo, which in the 1980s was the bat du jour. Martin makes do with a Fearnley.
Nikita Bastian is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo