Add to ORKGAlthough it has become a somewhat hackneyed way to start a paper on cricket, it remains almost impossible to discuss the sport without some reference to its role as the quintessentially “English ” game. As far back as 1857, Thomas Hughes in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, described cricket as “the birthright of British boys old and young, as habeas corpus and trial by jury are of British men”. More recently, in the wake of the perceived threat posed to English sovereignty by the increasing power of the European Parliament, John Major attempted to reassure the British elec-torate by evoking images of Britain as “the country of long shadows on county (cricket) grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pool fillers”.1 Yet such desc...