'How is cricket remembered?'
Gary Naylor, writing in his blog 99.94, explains that our memories of cricket matches are largely exaggerated, while Jonathan Wilson writes that there is so much drama happening in the actual game, that even a fictionalized account of the same seems trite
11-Sep-2013
Cricket may 'only' be a sport, but it is not without its fair share of thrilling narratives, plot twists, unexpected drama and more often than not- shock endings. But owing to the game's sheer length and unique nature, our memory of cricket matches remain largely fictionalised, writes Gary Naylor in his blog, 99.94.
My memories of cricket (for example when I wrote of this famous day at Old Trafford in 1981) are unreliable, capturing and rejecting detail almost at random. I'm as likely to recall the hardness of the benches on which we sat or the cry of the newspaper vendor with his bag of Manchester Evening Newses as I am to conjure the memory of Botham's blind sixes. Even as strong an impression as that made by my first experience of a live First Class match (this one from 1975) was corrupted by the passage of time, only to be rectified by the unarguable flat data of the web. The match in my mind (with first day centuries for Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge and a second day riposte in kind by Clive Lloyd) will never be the match on the screen - nor, perhaps, should it be.