Early Cricket – John Arlott (1977)

From Arlott and Truman on Cricket. The first part of this book is a hundred or so page history of cricket up to the 1970s. Below are the two chapters that deal with early cricket. Arlott once called cricket ‘The Game the Wealden rustics handed down1. His finely judged romanticism is never far away.

To read the text, go to the top right of the pdf reader below, access the settings menu via the double chevrons pointing right and select rotate anti-clockwise, maybe select presentation view as well. Sorry about all that, it is worth it.

  1. From his poem about Jack Hobbs entitled “To John Berry Hobbs on his Seventieth Birthday”. It was Arlott’s last poem, probably his best. ↩︎