Photo by Marcus Wallis

‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ famously wrote the Trinidadian historian C.L.R. James in Beyond a Boundary, exploring not just the beauty and psychology of the game, but the unspoken layers of class, race, and politics woven into its fabric.

Imagine baseball had a charming cousin obsessed with tea, strategy, and elaborate manners—that’s cricket. Even Americans already alarmed by abrupt shifts to their geopolitical loyalties would find it just as baffling. But crack its code, and you’ll discover a sport steeped in extraordinary folklore, butterflies on the field, exquisite skill, and homemade lemonade. The present Test matches between England and India, in the cricketing counties of Yorkshire and Warwickshire, with Middlesex’s Lords in London next, showcase it all—modern clashes in historic arenas, between a former empire and its most populous ex-colony.

In England, cricket remains the last gasp of orderly rebellion—sun hats, cucumber sandwiches, and all—still ghosted by a colonial past, still pretending not to notice Westminster’s present chaos, still brilliant.

Over two billion people worldwide—yes, two billion—are obsessed with cricket. And not because it’s quaint.

For many, cricket carries the weight of history. Across continents, it’s been a stage for protest, resistance, and pride—a tool of exclusion, and later, of course, unity. In much of the postcolonial world, it’s not just a sport. It’s memory, defiance, identity. It’s really a shame Americans never picked it up.

But first, the basics: Cricket is a bat-and-ball game between two teams of 11. At its heart is a nuanced duel between bowler and batter (formerly ‘batsman’—a small but telling nod to cricket’s slow reckoning with gender and inclusion). Unlike baseball, which loves speed and spectacle—as I recall from thirst-quenching trips to Yankee Stadium—cricket embraces the long form, an almost literary protest against modern attention spans. Last time I visited Lord’s, the home of English cricket, wicketkeeper Jack Russell was waiting outside my interview........

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