PearlyBooks

100 in stock

Everyone's image of the ideal cricket ground will be a village field, fringed by trees, the outfield dappled with clovers and buttercups, swallows flitting above... And what of all the other wildlife associated with this most natural of sports? Test Match Special's commentators muse on the comings and goings of the Oval's resident foxes. In London's Bushy Park matches are frequently interrupted by incursions of deer; in the New Forest by wild ponies. At Kirkby Lonsdale CC in Cumbria the local fungus group found 20 species of waxcap on the outfield. For some reason hoopoes, spectacular orange-and-black crested birds from southern Europe, favour cricket grounds on their rare migrations to the UK.

This unique, funny, delightful cricket book from left field explores the relationship between cricket grounds and the natural world, through wildlife records, art and literature, and many remarkable photos, and, as the short-form game seeks out soaring stadia, asks, how far is cricket losing its nature?