The cricket fiction of Siegfried Sassoon, Hugh de Sélincourt, and AG Macdonell is more than just a depiction of a "bucolic dreamworld," according to a letter published in The Guardian today. Rod Edmond, author of 'Cricket, Fiction and Nation', argues against a persistent caricature of these works.
Sassoon's 'The Flower Show Match' is set against the backdrop of the Boer War, with mentions of the relief of Ladysmith. The story also includes a home umpire suspected of using his wooden leg to make dents in the pitch.
In De Sélincourt's 'The Cricket Match', a war profiteer fells trees for pit props, and the club struggles to recover from the war, facing a "melancholy certainty that each season must surely be the last." The narrative also touches on the Russian Revolution and class antagonism, with a labourer fast bowler holding contempt for the public-school son of the lady of the manor.
Macdonell's 'England, Their England' is permeated with the after-effects of the First World War. Its Scottish protagonist investigates the English principle of "team spirit" but remains unenlightened after a day with a diverse team of metropolitan writers and publishers in a Kent village.