In remembrance of lost grounds

Steve James, in the Daily Telegraph, takes an emotive look at a new book by Chris Arnot which celebrates some of Britain's cricket grounds that have been lost. James played on some of the venues and wished he had the chance to play on others, such as the Central Ground in Hastings.

"Elegant four-story Regency houses with wrought iron balconies peered loftily over the Alfred Coote stand, built above the Queen’s Road shops in 1959,” Arnot writes of it, “Rows of boarding houses clambered up the cliffs towards the castle ruins cresting the summit. Gulls soared overhead and John Arlott’s claret-honed tones rose to new levels of lyricism as he set the scene for Sunday afternoon viewers during BBC2’s coverage of John Player League matches.”