Googly to silly point, cricket for children explained

AN author from Henley is to launch the third in a series of children’s sports books this summer.

Cracking Cricket by Robin
Bennett coincides with the new season that will include another Ashes series between England and Australia.

It explores the wonderful world of bats and bails, golden ducks and googlies and silly mid-off and on.

The book follows the publication of Rampaging Rugby and then Fantastic Football in a series which the author describes as “Horrible Histories for sport”.

Robin, who lives in Queen Street with his wife Helene and children, Jude, 18, Victor, 17, and Hortense, 14, says: “Fantastic Football had that kind of slow burn because the World Cup didn’t kick off until a few months after it was published.

“Then we had the whole back to school thing and then it got another shot in the arm when the World Cup actually started.

“We did the rugby book first and it was almost like leading with your strongest hand second with football being so massive — and now it’s cricket.”

The 54-year-old, who has played cricket since he was a boy, had “an absolute ball” writing the book.

“I really enjoyed it,” he says. “I really did, it was fantastic.

“[Former England bowler] Simon Jones, who was awarded an MBE for beating Australia in the Ashes, very kindly came on board to make sure that things I said weren’t completely wrong or stupid.

“It was that incredible Ashes series in 2005. We weren’t expected to win and, in fact, I think we were expected to lose every match.

“Unusually for England, we managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

“The Ashes is probably the biggest rivalry in cricket. I suppose now it has been slightly overtaken by the Pakistan-India rivalry but they don’t have anything like it to hang their hat on.

“We’ve got this great story of somebody burning the bails of the stumps to signify the death of English cricket when we lost an international for the first time to Australia in 1882.

“Those bails — the ashes — were put into this tiny little urn which is played for every two years.

“The urn is minute — it’s literally about the size of your thumb.”

The game has a reputation for its bizarre jargon, convoluted rules and odd scoring systems (Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method anybody?). Robin says: “I’d love to know where half them come from. I mean, I’ve done a little bit of history of cricket and no one seems to know where it started.

“I’ve plumped for the theory that it was bored shepherds looking after their sheep.

“Early cricket balls were made out of wool wrapped in leather and you’ve got your wicket fences.

“Shepherds have those sorts of things — fences you can move around — and they have a crook to hit the ball. I love that the whole thing is lost in the mists of time. Nobody really knows anything about where the first cricket matches were and why they were played but there are lots of anecdotes and they’re all very funny and intriguing.”

Robin has played the game since he was a boy at the Oratory Preparatory School.

He confesses: “When I was about 15, I broke a Spanish kid’s nose at school. I bowled a ball very badly at him and because he was Spanish, he’d obviously never picked up a cricket bat in anger. I bowled, completely by mistake, what’s called a beamer where basically the ball goes straight at their head. This poor chap, I broke his nose.

“I think Mr Perez Mara is now somewhere far away.

“I’ve played cricket since I was seven and have never really stopped but I still don’t know all the rules.

“There are times when the captain will say to me, ‘Could you go over and stand by silly mid-point off leg?’

“I’ll go, ‘Um, yeah, okay’ and just walk this way vaguely until he tells me to stop.

“Sometimes, when you’re playing cricket, you have to sort of literally pitch in and help score or umpire.

“I actually just wing it and hope there isn’t one of the sticklers with me.”

Cricket in simple terms is good fun, says Robin.

“All you’re doing is chucking a ball and someone else is trying to hit it as hard and as far as they possibly can,” he says.

“Then you’ve got village cricket, French cricket that you play with your family in the back garden, hotel cricket...

“I’ve done the rounds a bit. I’ve played for Binfield Heath, Stonor Woodcote.

“We used to do this really cool thing with Round Table in Henley.

“We used to play this charity match, Oxfordshire Round Tablers against my lot, and we used to borrow Lord Phillimore’s ground at Coppid Hall. He was always very generous with the ground.

“It was a typically English, bonkers pitch because there’s actually a tree growing in the middle of it. It’s rather a nice tree at where we would call silly midwicket. It’s like an extra fielder.

“That’s what nice about cricket, it was the same for everybody — it was equally annoying and unfair for both teams and nobody was going to cut the tree down.

“Once when I was playing at Stonor we were asked to be in Midsomer Murders and we said, ‘Yeah, definitely, that sounds great’.

“Then they took a look at us and went, ‘Actually, can we just invite a local school because we want younger players?’

“It’s a beautiful pitch that overlooks Stonor itself and I think that’s why they must have chosen it but clearly we weren’t photogenic enough for the producers.”

Robin will be talking about the book over the summer as he is promoting this year’s Summer Reading Challenge, along with Bear Grylls and Clare Balding.

The challenge encourages children to read books from their local library during their summer holidays and earn rewards for each one they complete.

Robin says: “The challenge this year is about being active. I love it — it’s about reading but also about doing sport.”

• Cracking Cricket by Robin Bennett, with illustrations by Matt Cherry, will be published on August 3. It is available to pre-order from Firefly Press, priced £6.99. For more information, visit fireflypress.
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