Contributors Alex Mummery................................................................................................................................................................................5 comes from Tasmania, and is new to writing despite being an unhinged sports fan most of his life. He is currently interested in how sport reflects real life, how we connect with the people and media around it and how it makes us feel. Posting more @secretsportsblg on Twitter in due time.
James Dronfield...........................................................................................................................................................................11 has been a cricket fan all his life. From watching village games as a child, to flying to New Zealand to watch a Test match, he enjoys all manifestations of the game. In his spare time he is completing an undergraduate degree, and likes making friends with cats he finds in the street.
Danielle Croci................................................................................................................................................................................16 is an emerging writer, podcaster and gender equity policy officer living in Melbourne, Australia. She enjoys cooking the food of her family's cultures, watching sport, and writing and thinking about sport fan culture. Her passion is analysing women's sport, especially footy.
Abi Slade..........................................................................................................................................................................................20 is a full-time postgraduate research student, a full-time bar manager, a full-time cricket follower and a full-time cold hard bitch from Bristol.
Freya Ryder...................................................................................................................................................................................22 is a cricket mad painter and the official unofficial artist of the loosely based cricketing podcast, Tailenders. Cricket is her main source of creative inspiration. The ecstasy of a player taking wickets and scoring runs is a constant fascination for her. It’s about capturing ‘the’ moment and mood in art.
Tommy Stewart.........................................................................................................................................................................23 is a journalist who's written for the Metro and spoken on national radio about how cricket saved his life after a breakup. He's also the 'Digital Coordinator' (Felix White's words) of the Tailenders podcast where he's known as Tommy Exotic (Greg James' words). Tommy worked as a broadcast journalist at BBC 5 Live for 7 years before becoming a freelance podcast producer, working on LGBTQ+ podcast Homo Sapiens, producing Alan Johnson's 'How to Change the World' and cocreating his own cricket podcast, The Murali End with Mark Machado.
Kim Fulton........................................................................................................................................................................................26 is a writer from Auckland, New Zealand. Her pieces have featured in literary journals in New Zealand and overseas. In 2020, she published her first book of poems, I kind of thought the alpacas were a metaphor until we got there. Kim has been involved with girls’ and women’s cricket for more than 25 years, having played at a range of levels in regions throughout the country.
Fergal Hanna.................................................................................................................................................................................28 is a 23 year old Chemistry PhD Student who grew up in the hills of Northern Derbyshire to Irish parents. He was hooked on watching cricket due to Monty and Jimmy in Cardiff but only started playing within the last year.
Benedict Jones............................................................................................................................................................................29 is a Gloucestershire cricket fan based in Cheltenham. He enjoys nothing more than sitting in his shed with the cricket on his laptop whilst painting his favourite players. He also takes painting requests!
Dipti......................................................................................................................................................................................................31 has had all of her chaotic thoughts filmed in front of a live studio audience. She is a cricket enthusiast, literature lover, and common sense hater.
Rijula Chakraborty....................................................................................................................................................................35 is a seventeen year old girl from Kolkata who loves art, journaling and all things cricket—so she jumbles all of these together in silly little attempts to make others and herself happy!
Julie Hall.............................................................................................................................................................................................36 is a wife and mum who loves cricket and baking (obviously). She works in the NHS, and is currently learning to sing in her spare time. She likes all things crafty, and enjoys nothing better at the end of a long week than a massive gin and tonic!
Billy Pratt..........................................................................................................................................................................................37 is a Half-Chinese cisgender man who makes things happen and likes to take the game by the scruff of its neck. Oval Invincibles til he dies, but only the women’s team. He regularly thinks about Toby Roland-Jones’s test career and watches the Hundred for the ebb and flow.
A new, alternative cricket fanzine. Our first issue is finally here! It's safe to say that we've been overwhelmed by the support that the Daisy Cutter has received, even before publication. From the tons of submissions that were sent our way, we've chosen the ones we think best reflect what we want to do with the zine. What do we want to do? Adhering to the school of Lauper-thought, we just want to have fun. We don't expect this zine to change the world, or even cricket, but we hope that it succeeds in providing a space for all fans to engage in a less mainstream way of enjoying sport. Daisy Cutter has been inspired by a lot of things: our own experiences as (young female) fans, the early 00s teen magazines of our childhoods, and the awful, absurd world that is cricket. We can't thank you all enough for the love you've given us over the past few months, especially those who have contributed. We hope you enjoy it! Abbie, Abi, Char, Ildikó, and Rhiannon
I found out that the world no longer contained Shane Warne whilst underground. A curt message of disbelief from my sister as the subway pulled up into Buchanan Street station and my signal disappeared, leaving me to sit in shock alone for ten minutes with no other information but those four words. The rest of the day and the next I spent in somewhat of a stunned daze, something I’d never experienced at the news of a celebrity’s death before. I couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t sleep. I went straight from the subway to a lecture on the deaths of massive stars, and the cheesiest parallel occurred to me when we were taught that supernovae briefly outshine their host galaxies. Nevertheless, I don’t think there's anything that I can say about Shane Warne that hasn’t been better articulated by someone with a deeper appreciation for his mastery of spin and how best to break down a batter’s resolve. I was seven when he retired, and despite a lifelong exposure, the urge to play cricket (let alone bowl leg spin) is yet to manifest itself in me. Still, I'm one of those thousands of people who unconsciously spin whatever spherical object is in my hand, and probably do so because of Shane Warne.
For me and most Gen Z-ers, his legacy was in the commentary box, a constant throughout our formative years which felt like it would go on forever. He had been offering his insights and tangents for as long as we could remember the cricket being on the TV in the front room. Quite a lot of it (more, I think, than a lot of people want to let on) was comically inane, stating the obvious or otherwise nonsensical, but in amongst his calls for some spin four overs into a green pitch, there were explosions of genius. Not just clever observations, but ones you knew only he had the vision to make. What stands out most about Shane Warne, however, is his image. There are plenty of big personalities in cricket, headlines and controversy following them around like an afterimage, but none of them ever felt as though they were truly at ease with the notoriety as Warne was. With others, there was always a shadow of insecurity, of vulnerability, something that Warne not only never had but never even stopped to consider, not even for a second. He was uncontained, and even if you loved to hate him, you at least respected that. Areas in Heaven, outshone them all.
Shane.
You
LATE NIGHT RADIO
Following cricket overseas has always created a challenge for an avid watcher. It's often a case of late nights or early mornings, making for bleary eyed people. There’s the constant challenge of time zone and decisions about how to consume, how much you should watch, when to get some shut eye, or even whether to bother at all and move on with your life. This past Ashes series, I found myself reflecting a lot about the people on the other side of the world, and my own experience in trying to navigate the time divide. For me, the Ashes has always evoked a type of nostalgia, which is late-night cricket on the radio. Whereas evenings surrounded by the cold blue light of the TV can be a forced or even spooky existence, I’ve always found the radio to be much warmer. It’s a sort of calming embrace as you drift off to sleep an accompaniment through your
insomnia or parts of the night you spend awake. I have fond memories of that warmth as a younger human, listening to Australian tours to India or England crackling away on my little alarm clock radio, getting transported into another country in another season, staying up a bit later than I should have on a school night, hearing different voices and perspectives on cricket that I had rarely heard. Late night talk radio is a strange space. It’s inherently more intimate and quiet and often just plain weird. It exists for a small set of people working night shift, those with tiny children, those struggling to drift off through the night or people with very specific interests. In some ways, a sport that is usually drenched in sunshine and stuffy tradition, doesn’t go along with this calming weirdness and intimate darkness of late night radio- but in others, it makes all the sense in the world. Cricket itself can be the quiet drift off, a diversion, or a bit of a fever dream. It’s easy to float in and out of the commentary as the pull of the night takes you away, or to be enjoying the company as the commentators natter away about outswingers, shot selection or general random stuff like sampling the joys of different ice creams around the place or former cricket experiences they’ve had. Part of the charm of getting the overseas radio feed is being transported to completely different sets of commentators, and acquainted with a different cricket culture and different personalities expanded the horizon as a cricket
fan. I remember feeling the completely jarring experience of encountering the eccentricity and accent of Henry Blofeld, later Ed Smith’s in the weeds prognostications, Alison Mitchell’s energy as she calls a wicket falling (listening to these broadcasts were the first places I’d heard women commentating too), interspaced with the familiarity of Jim Maxwell and whatever Australian ex-pro they could find kicking about at the time. Experiencing this education or difference in culture, felt a bit secret, like you were finding out about this whole other side to your cricketing world - especially before the internet conglomerated a lot of the interesting cricket voices to be always available. The late night-ness of it all also allows you to develop rhythms and interpret moments and events in cricket in unusual ways. The emotion of the sport is different while encountered in the wee hours, and it feels like a more individual experience. Most evenings of the 2019 Ashes, I’d turn on the BBC or Guerrilla Cricket radio coverage - listen till a bit after lunch, and then turn it off or put on a sleep timer and get some proper shut eye. This series rhythm was broken on the final day of the Headingley Test, when I’d accidentally left my radio stream on overnight. Whether it was because of the intensity of the commentary taking up a notch to go past the threshold of a suitable volume to keep sleeping or just by pure chance I awoke during the last session to BBC play-by-play commentator Simon Mann losing his mind in the commentary box. As I
started to come to my senses, blearily trying to make sense of what was happening on that day at Headingley where Ben Stokes batted England to victory, it felt like I was experiencing a kind of fever dream in my brain trying to process what was going on. How the heaves from Stokes that travelled just over the fielders for 6 kept finding their mark, the Aussie’s losing their collective marbles, and how to process Jack Leach at the other end, hanging on for dear life.
That innings itself was a bit of a dream- in terms of its intensity, and its unlikeliness, and it reflected into my own experience while listening and created something a little bit profound. But just as importantly as the surreal moments, it’s the mundanity and sense of accompaniment that late night cricket on the radio gives that can be so special.
Alex Mummery
In another time or place I might have run to turn on the TV, but for whatever reason I just kept lying there, insatiably devouring the rest of the match in an almost paralysed state in bed. It is a cricket experience that is now burned into my brain, not just because of how the back end of that innings happened- which is obviously special - but also because of some of that almost dreamlike, out of body experience I had in listening to it.
Ben CARPLEY
-
Surrey
-
ENG
Benedict Carpley was born to humble beginnings in Rhodesia, the son of Winston Carpley, a mid-level manager in global chromium mining solutions and socialite Antoinette de Boffenschloeken. Carpley first came to prominence in the 2020-21 season after refusing to take the knee in a charity benefit match at his home ground in Surrey, but subsequently captured our attention with his confident strokeplay and willingness to switch hit in the first over of the match. Keep your eyes on Carpley this season for his aggressive running between the wickets and the fiery banter in his friendly rivalry with opening partner and second cousin Harry-Fulton Corker.
Jonathan 'Jono' SHEPPERTON Sussex ENG
Harry FULTON-CORKER Surrey ENG
Pongo Durham SA
Mitch HAM Nottinghamshire AUS
Hunk FRUNKUS Gloucestershire NAM
James FIPPS Lancashire ENG
Mitch BLOOT-MCANDREW Kent AUS
Pfiffy
DE BOFFENSCHLOEKEN
VAN WEEGENWOUTERS
Yorkshire SA
Images: thispersondoesnotexist.com
there have been constant discussions regarding the future of English cricket since the embarrassing loss in Australia this winter. Many seasoned professionals and wellrespected journalists have offered up their own thoughts on why this failure occurred, and how to rectify it, but so far the cricket community at large have failed to consider the most important opinion:
mine. below i have detailed a fool proof plan to reinvigorate English cricket, with a particular focus on winning the next Ashes series in Australia (a tactic that has worked so well for us so far). I hope the ECB see this and take my proposals into consideration, as I genuinely believe they can usher in a new age of cricketing prosperity in England’s green and pleasant land.
Make me the coach. This may seem controversial initially as I am probably quite an outside shout, but there is a lot of logic to the choice. Firstly, I would need to be in charge to enforce many of the following points, so logistically it just makes sense. Secondly, I was a sports leader for a bit in Year 10 when I would go into primary schools one afternoon a week to teach P.E. This experience stands me in good stead My first action as coach would be to imprison everyone that went on the rebel tours to South Africa. So many of them maintain influential positions within the ECB having never expressed regret or remorse for their actions supporting apartheid in South Africa, which is contrary to the ECB’s anti-racism message and also to being a decent human being.
Quite simply we need people with good vibes only going forward, and actively participating in the sportswashing of a hugely racist regime means that they fall outside of this categorisation. I am yet to work out the ins and outs of this plan (I assume the England coach can just send people to jail?) but I can hash out the details before I start my new job. Our first personnel issue within the team is the fact that we lack good batters who aren’t called Joe Root. I have come up with an incredibly simple solution to this problem which will instantly change our number of competent batters from one to two: Heather Knight in a bald cap. If she feels really committed, she could even shave her head. I am sure nobody will notice and this will be a quick fix to many of our batting woes.
as I am assuming professional cricketers have petulant attitudes similar to those of seven-year-olds. Finally, I offer just enough diversity without rocking the boat too much. I am queer and autistic which are nice little attributes that can be wheeled out to say ‘look! we are diverse!’ whenever the ECB faces criticism, but I am also a white middle class man which should make all the ‘old guard’ very happy.
Another way to get better players is just to select the majority of the Sussex team. They are all children at the moment and playing a lot of First Class cricket, which is great preparation for entering the Test arena in a few years. I have no doubts surrounding their ability to be incredible international cricketers and none of this has anything to do with the fact that I support Sussex.
We now know Steve Smith is susceptible to getting stuck in lifts. I wonder if there is a way to exploit this when we return to Australia. I suggest creating a ‘Lift Maintenance Bribery Fund’ with a view to pay off those who maintain lifts in the hotels that the Australian team are staying in. We could lure him in there with M&M’s. Maybe he can bring Marnus too.
Never let national treasure James Anderson retire. I feel like this one goes without saying.
Rumour has it that as well as being a fearless defender of women’s cricket, Rory Burns is a kind of reverse Samson. If you are unfamiliar with the Biblical story, this guy called Samson is absolutely massive but all his strength comes from his hair and then this lady called Delilah tricks him and chops it all off
and then he’s just a weak little man. What if Rory Burns suffers from an inversion of this? If we send him to the barber (with bald Heather Knight) and get all his hair chopped off, maybe he will get really good and not step over to about eleventh stump on the first ball of the series next time. Maybe.
People have handicaps in golf because there is an understanding that some players are fundamentally less good than others. I propose that this sentiment is brought into cricket via the DRS system. In the 2025/26 Ashes series, England should have access to Abolish private schools. This is another action that may be somewhat outside of the remit of the England coach, but it’s certainly worth a try. Statistics show that there is a grossly disproportionate number of private school alumni in men’s professional cricket in England, and look where that has got us so far! If we get rid of private schools, and therefore private school pupils, then we will surely get better.
umpire’s call when it benefits them, but it should not be used if it will benefit the Australians. This rebalancing of the books will make the game more enjoyable to watch for everyone, both because there will be more competition and because it negatively impacts the Australians. If these simple and achievable policies are followed (which they should be) then I have no doubt that England will once again reach the heady heights experienced in 2010/11, winning in Australia and becoming the number one Test team in the world. I await contact from the ECB so that our journey to fix English cricket together can begin in earnest.
James Dronfield
s have been and floppiest faux pa ds en tr t es tt ho 's this season algorithm. if you ranked by a specialist ly ise ec pr d an lly fu to have care ofusely and promise pr e gis olo ap ly on n disagree, we ca ly put down. the algorithm humane
women's cricket From the WAshes to the World cup, the pace and action of women's cricket has been like no other this season. We want MORE
saqib mahmood Finally, a Test cap for our king, and hopefully many more to come. Still need him to drop the hair routine
sciver & brunt They sound like a law firm, but they are in fact our most beloved cricket mums. Would die for them
the famous butterkist The real winners in our hearts who we can't wait to see play again. After all, what is the county season but preHundred preparatio- [I am taken out by a rooftop sniper]
the yorkshire county cricket club Without even considering recent developments, the YCCC will never be hot on account of Yorkshire not being a real place
racism This shouldn't need an explanation, but you never know in this sport
the barmy army Please shut up please shut up please shut up please shut up please shut up please shut up please shut up please shut up please shut up please shut up please shut u
singing don't take me home Get a job and some original craic. Cheers
men's cricket (booooo) The pure evil which emanates from this form of the game is putrid. It's perverse. Why are you, as a man, playing cricket - a woman's game? Vile, if you ask me
9/12/21: On a night that threatens rain all evening, 10,000 of us gather at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl to hear Australia’s poet Paul Kelly. I’ve seen him live a few times, and there’s nothing quite like the way the crowd melts while belting out the opening lines of ‘Leaps and Bounds’: "I'm high on the hill / looking over the bridge / to the Emmmm Ceeee Geeee". The M.C.G. is just over there! This is our home! We’ve come out of yet another lockdown, and the prospect of there being cricket, or indeed any sport, down there is tantalising. I know very little about cricket, but maybe this will be the summer to change that.
19/12/21: The combination of the Test and the Big Bash advertising KFC has me craving nothing but. I will resist. I don’t need to be spending any more money at the moment, we’re lucky enough to already have a pantry full of food.
28/12/21 10.45am: The realisation has crept up slowly for me over the last few summers but I’m ready to say it - test cricket is a serial time sap. I’m sitting here with the blinds up and the sun pouring in, nursing a reheated macchiato and the last of the homemade gingerbread from Christmas, watching balls being bowled to little effect on Day 3. I realise that this could easily soak up the dregs of my morning with very little to show for it (especially considering I’ve got guests coming at 1).
28/12/21 12pm: I just left the house for 20 minutes to grab some broad beans for the dip I’m making for lunch, and returned home to find the Test over?! How did that happen?
28/12/21 12.45pm: Have caught up on what happened this morning, and feel so proud of Gulidjan man Scott Boland. A Victorian! How incredible for him to win man of the match on debut, in his home state. And it’s the first Mullagh Medal awarded, named for Jardwadjali man Johnny Mullagh who was the star of the Indigenous side that went to England in 1868. Boland has etched his name into history, and the pure joy and hushed tones people are using to talk about him today are contagious.
29/12/21: Ben McDermott hit 127 off 65 in the Big Bash tonight. I really want some KFC.
9/1/22: 51,356 COVID-19 cases in Victoria today. It feels like this Sydney test was made for lying in front of the TV for hours on end, amid the endless heat and what we’re now calling a ‘shadow lockdown’. Bizarre feeling when you’re technically allowed to leave the house, and you’re watching others live their lives, but it still doesn’t quite feel safe. Instead, I’ve spent the past five days marveling over Usman Khawaja’s centuries, and simultaneous pride and disgust watching Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes stand up to pathetic crowd behaviour that seems to consistently rear its ugly head.
10/1/22: I caved. It’s over 30 degrees and after work I crashed on my bed in a stupor and couldn’t get up. Called my partner and asked if he could pick up some KFC on the way home. Worth it, thanks cricket.
12/1/22: We had to turn the Big Bash off tonight. I’m back at work after a week off for Christmas, and the nightly match on in the background while I read and rue my lost annual leave is making my evenings blur into one another.
19/1/22: For the past week I’ve been reading C.L.R. James’ ‘Beyond a Boundary’ - what a perfect opportunity to pick it up. Most of the technical cricket jargon goes over my head, but it’s a fascinating read on racism and colonialism in the West Indies, and the incredible cricketers of the time. Where can I find more books like this?
23/1/22: Is there a sport more contingent on the conditions than cricket? I’m still trying to wrap my head around what the weather and the condition of the pitch means for how a ball bounces, and how that knowledge seems to come naturally for people. But the fact that we must rely so heavily on it for the game to be played at all is infuriating. I was looking forward to watching the Women’s Ashes T20 games all weekend while recovering from my booster shot in the heat … hopes dashed.
30/1/22 6pm: Who knew test cricket could be so exciting, feel so urgent?! In similar fashion to the men earlier in the month, England has 13 balls and one wicket left. Sure I’m an Australian supporting Australia, but I’m proud of England for sticking it out until the end and giving us this exciting moment to talk about. Right now it feels like the cricket world is my oyster, I’ve learned a lot this summer.
Which England Captain Is Your Perfect Match? theyre our angels. our wifes
What do you think of women? gotta be one of my favourite genders
yes
Did you share your Spotify wrapped? heard of them
The Barmy Army should be...
Dogs or cats? dogs
no
cats
no
Do you have a clubcard?
Which is more important?
knighted
tried for their crimes
yes
Do you prefer to dress up or dress down?
morals
Do you know more than one of your star signs?
Which sounds like the most appealing midweek activity?
up down
politeness
campaigning for the conservative and unionist party
killing something
there's more than one!?
Heather Knight Andrew Strauss Nasser Hussain You're a fun-loving gal who can keep it chill under pressure, so this will be a match made in heaven. Just be sure to always be on your guard around her, lest you wake up one morning to discover she has given you frosted tips.
Bald South African is very 'in' at the moment, so when you step out as the Tory party conference's hottest new couple, let him do the work. You're not afraid of a challenge, even when your decisions are objectively terrible and everyone tells you so. They're just haters, girlboss!
Girl, you're timeless. You're not afraid to stand up for yourself and others - that's why everyone loves you. You've seen the highs and lows and come out on top, and with your combined power the two of you could rule the world.
sun, moon, and rising babey
Alastair Cook You're enticed by the rural serenity of the farming world and nothing says #tradlifetiktok quite like shooting your own juvenile venison. Just be careful you don't drop your 't's in front of him or he might turn the rifle on you!
BATSMAN In 2021, the word 'batter' was introduced into the MCC'S laws of cricket to refer to the person batting. A complete nonevent; just a simple change of a word. Absolutely harmless. Unless, of course, you have ever met any followers of the game. I saw the term 'batter' being used as a gentle step forward to the acknowledgement of all genders playing cricket; an overdue stride towards using inclusive language to encourage everyone to get involved in the game. No longer a word that sounds like a superhero. It all depends on the person, obviously. As someone growing up with cricket, I always saw 'batsman' as exclusively male. It especially felt weird as a child; the boys I were playing with weren't men, they were children. For me, a prepubescent eleven-year-old girl to be labelled as such was incredibly jarring and highly amusing. And so, thirteen years later, the language changes. Hooray! Hang on?
"BATTER! That's what you cover fish with!" "Batter?! This isn't baseball!" So many people were angry. Why? Why were they so angry? Is the replacement of 'man' with 'ter' that emasculating for You? The excuse of 'I'm just used to saying it' can only stretch so far. in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a step. If social media is anything to go off of (which, sadly, in this modern world it always is), many men still seemingly regard women's cricket as lesser. The change from 'batsman' to 'batter' isn't going to challenge gender roles or stop the sexualisation or degradation of women in cricket. Some women also have said that they don't care whether 'batsman' or 'batter' is used; that's great for you, but not for the others who feel excluded from the sport because of the terminology
being used. Before anyone says they feel excluded by 'batter' being used... find a reason for that and grow up. Speaking as a girl who was once driven away from the sport because she was the only girl on the team: if you are going to drive someone away from the game that they love so dearly because you are too arrogant or too lazy to use the same number of syllables and say a word that might actually make a young person who does not identify as a 'batsman' feel welcome, then that's on you. 'Let's get more women involved in cricket!', you say? Then make a small adjustment to your vocabulary today and we can change the world.
ABI SLADE
JOKERS
AND THE
AND THE
Freya Ryder
the only gay in the village i'm
(cricket team).
Now I know that's far from true, and a more antiquated reference I could not have used, but at times it does feel like I'm Heather Knight holding up an end, whilst allies and fellow queers meekly collapse around me. This isn't a claim to martyrdom, and as a white British male with a decent bowling action, I have little to bemoan in this life. BUT my bisexuality of which I revealed to Twitter before even my family in the summer of 2020, has forever been a source of anxiety and deep-seated shame, even since coming out. I'm white, I love sports and I've had lots of girlfriends: "He's straight, look at him, he's SO straight!!! Sure, he's an expressive and sometimes aggressive advocate for LGBTQ+ causes, and yeah, he's a bit on the 'carry-on-camp' side now and again, but he's slept with a few women, so that means he's straight. What he's not doing is over-compensation, of that we are sure!" Now, considering most of my Twitter followers were accrued due to investment in my cricket content, namely, being a bloke who works on the wonderful Tailenders podcast (I'll come to those lovely boys later), I never felt truly safe or assured before coming out as bi (let's call me an all-rounder actually, considering the context of this piece. Or maybe that should be reserved for pansexuality? I digress...). Recently one of my best friends said they went through some of my old
tweets (it's mutually beneficial to prevent each other's inevitable cancellation) and told me there were a multitude of of tweets where I'd essentially said "I'm straight but he's fit". I'd been hiding in plain sight leaving a trail of vague suggestions and clues over the past few years, almost hoping someone would out me rather having to go through that pain myself so I could then choose whether to admit or deny it. It's something to do with the intrinsic human fascination with jeopardy, a real-life roulette. Facing a 95mph bouncer from a solid rock in nets! That, or my previous habit for self-harm. I can only say this in hindsight, but from afar, this sober, slightly heavier but far less angry and anxious version of myself can pinpoint one commonality in both my self-denial and outward fraudulence. Sport. The sporting community. MY sporting communities football and cricket. This isn't to say football is anywhere near "fixed" when it comes to queerphobia, but there's been visible progression within the sport and its biggest names. Take the extremely popular rainbow laces campaign which raises awareness and money for LGBTQ+ causes. Take Liverpool's captain Jordan Henderson being a vocal ally for a trans England fan during Euro 2020. Take Gareth Southgate's exemplary and allencompassing leadership of that group of likeable players.
So, it's with a reluctant inevitability that my sword turns to cricket. The Big C. The ooooooold crickeroo. We all know the well-documented, ugly issues with institutional racism the game has, following the Azeem Rafiq parliamentary select committee after his allegations against his former club, Yorkshire CC. We also know the game itself has some, let's say, quirky nuances. Egg and bacon ties, opposing teams wearing the same kits which includes fucking trousers, and the ECB, who essentially decide what happens in all of our cricket in this country being a totally self-governing, almost exclusively privately educated board, which rewards itself with MASSIVE bonuses for not doing very much at all. That's English Cricket for you, so whimsical in its zany ways. This isn't to say there aren't allies within the game, but from a personal perspective, I do feel very isolated. The only negative comments I got when I came out on Twitter, were, sadly, from cricket fans. It's too triggering for myself and the reader to say specifically what was said, and I should stress that 99.9% of the response was overwhelmingly loving and positive, but I've began to question whether that was a coincidence. Not only do I not see anyone like me within the cricket media (of which I am proudly a small cog of) or the professional game (of which, at 31, I have not ruled out still being a MASSIVE cog of), but unlike football, I don't see any desire to change that. Where's the rainbow laces campaign!? Where's the Gareth Southgate!? I'm aware of the campaigns the England
cricket team have got behind and the T-shirts which punctuated what they stand against in the summer, but the irony of Ollie Robinson and Craig Overton wearing those shirts, is not lost on me. When I came out, it felt like cricket Twitter gave me a collective doublepat-release and an uncomfortable ruffle of the hair before swiftly moving on to discuss the viability of James Vince as a Test match player hoping to never speak of this rare occurrence again, airbrushing my sexuality from their memories because I might one day be able to get them a 'Go Well' on Tailenders. We're rapidly encroaching on the cricket season of 2022, I've been on fire whilst working on my yorker in winter nets, but since coming out almost two years ago now, I have seen a stagnant nothing. I'd almost rather regression, because at least it might concoct a collective kick up cricket's arse. Stagnance is far more distressing. It means we're going nowhere fast and no one has the intention to change that any time soon. There's no money in it, so why would they? There's only one LGBTQ+ cricket team in this country that I'm aware of, whereas football has leagues of said teams! There are, of course, exceptions to the silence I see. Tailenders is a genuinely welcoming community of players and fans, who were overtly embracive, including the four legends who host the podcast themselves. Even though I'm a miniscule part of the process of creating that audio magic, Greg, Felix, Jimmy, Matt and Sharky have always
been hugely supportive of me at trying times. The start of the pandemic when I lost basically all of my work from 5 Live, they stuck by me. During periods of personal stress and addiction lows (which they didn't even know about), they never failed to cheer(s) me up and more pertinently, treat me as a peer, as part of the team. I'm pretty sure I received tweets or personal messages from each of them after I came out, which is totally above and beyond.
gay'. If you still have insecurities about that, maybe you need to look deeper within yourself at why you have those insecurities and what you can do to improve.
I'm not saying one needs to be a performative ally, by the way. Like a new ball, allyship can take many different forms. One of the most commonly highlighted examples of authentic allyship, whether you're a cricket fan or not, is that of England captain Joe Root and his stance against alleged homophobic slurs being used on the pitch in 2019. Root's response to the West Indies' Shannon Gabriel's prehistoric and bigoted idea of sledging was simple, impactful and frankly perfect, saying “there is nothing wrong with being gay”. That's something I frequently show people in my Venn diagram of friends and communities who don't fall into 'queer cricket fan', a.k.a almost everyone I know. So if you want to be a proactive ally, other than simply offering your personal support to me, a shiny bisexual Charizard of queerness on cricket Twitter, be vocal about your support for queer causes within and outside of the sport. This specifically goes out to men, who I know, like myself before coming out, feel awkward about being vocal for queer causes 'because people might think I'm
TOMMY STEWART
eden park, kingsland I don’t remember the last time I spoke to the boy I sat alongside the night Chris Cairns retired. The game was tied at the end of the second innings. He’d choked at the crease then again in the bowl-off. At 11 p.m. we were still in tee-shirts as we walked to the train station sipping cokes. I couldn’t tell you who won that night the first leaves of autumn crackled beneath our feet.
The foliage would be green again by the time the new playing season started, regenerated through a chemical process I once learned and have since forgotten. I wonder what happens to all the things I have forgotten – the names of players once chanted, heroes reduced to answers to trivia questions printed on the undersides of beer caps
Not that he drank – the boy who’d stay onboard an extra stop to see me home then backtrack through his troubled neighbourhood on foot, shielded by his fighter’s physique and faith. We travelled fearlessly through those nights, fading from memory like the knowledge of the process that makes a hardened bud bloom. KIM FULTON
One Summer, Two Games In a state of lockdown boredom, I picked up the old hand-me-down bat that had been lying round at my parents’ since my godmother gave it to me when her son grew out of cricket. It hadn’t felt leather on its willow in years, I decided that throwing tennis balls against the wall and hitting them back was a way to pass time as I revised for my final year exams at Cambridge. Heading back to the university for my PhD, I decided to bring the rest of the hand-me-down gear (plus a new bat when I realised my old one was a junior size) and take up college cricket. Having played inter-college football during my undergraduate degree I was expecting, and found, a welcoming atmosphere. What I didn’t expect, however, was the high standard of the sport played: when I finally came back from injury in April 2021, I could hardly lay bat on ball in the nets and was being tonked everywhere. Having picked up Gaelic football quite quickly as an adult learner, I was maybe naïve as to how quickly I could pick up cricket. Whilst the boys from the college team are a nice bunch of lads all told, I felt an outsider based on my lack of talent. Thinking about it, I felt that I also stood out with my northern accent, but that is a general issue in Cambridge which was then exacerbated by cricket.
My comparative lack of skills meant I only made the XI twice. Once, we only had eleven players available and I unexpectedly had to fill in. In this game, the only competitive one I played, I ended up fielding for the other side as well. I toiled away in the sun for thirty overs with no batting or bowling, and so it was not a great introduction to cricket for a first-timer. The opposition in that game even contained a Leicestershire 2nd XI player, but we still won easily – a sign of how good the college team is. The other appearance was in a friendly game versus college alumni – and, truth be told, I was there solely to sledge my friends who were on the opposing team. In those two games, I batted once in the friendly, 0* (9), and didn’t bowl at all. Swayed by the promise of sunnier, postlockdown days, I had also signed up for my mixed gender team at work. This would allow me to keep playing cricket once the undergraduates in the college team had gone home for the summer. Only when I started playing in this team did I feel anywhere near anybody else’s level: with my batting average of 2 and bowling average of 102, I was not the worst at either on the team. I was also joined by a Geordie - this helped me feel more naturally welcomed as I was no longer surrounded by a sea of RP accents. Initially I offered to help organise the games which led to me
Benedict Jones
captaining the team, such was our lack of experience. With our talent level, captaining was more about making sure that everyone got a go rather than winning games. What was the difference between these teams? Both had a good representation from South Asian communities, neither had any Afro-Caribbean players, which reflects wider participation numbers in recreational cricket in England. My work team was mixed gender, as was at least one other in the league. However, the college team was only men. For me, these differences were most keenly felt one evening when I was in the pub with some of the college team. One of my teammates mentioned he had attended to Merchant Taylors’ School. Having been to MTS to watch Middlesex play Leicestershire in the County Championship, I have seen how large their grounds are. Grounds which contain indoor and outdoor (all-weather and grass) nets alongside twelve grass squares. Twelve squares at one school, let that sink in.
There are many people who can more eloquently talk about how the tiered system of schooling is holding back toplevel cricket in England, and how it is a factor in reducing participation numbers. The aim of this piece is to describe how this can also lead to barriers within recreational cricket. As public land is sold off, the sport is shut off from more and more of the population. Rory Dollard recently described being northern and working-class in cricket journalism as like he “walked into a party and got the dress code wrong”. That line stuck with me. It described perfectly how I felt in the college team and, if it wasn’t for the heartening experience of playing with the work team, I might have stopped playing all together. It is down to us who care about the game to fight for better access and equality for those in state education, not only to produce more elite talent like Anderson, Wood and Stokes, but also to make recreational cricket more equal and welcoming to all.
Having gone to a state school that didn’t even have any grass sport pitches on site, I was never going to have the same sporting opportunities as someone from a private school. For me, cricket at school was played on a nearby Redgra surface, or the concrete playground with soft balls and plastic bats. I wasn’t exposed to recreational cricket outside of school (as cricket was alien to my working-class Irish parents). Not that club cricket would have helped me bridge the gap. There were plenty of players with club experience in our work team, but none matched the quality of the private school boys who played for the college team.
Fergal Hanna
R 1 LIFIE CSK A U Q IPL - ITALS VS R H OVE CAP T 9 I 1 H L E DE OF TH S E L IC CHRON pti. By Di
FADE IN : EXT. DUBAI INTERNATIONAL STADIUM, NIGHT.
1
Establishing shot. WE OPEN with a slow zoom-in on the team huddle right before CSK comes out to bat. The men in bright blue JSW jerseys are discussing their action plan, everyone nodding their head solemnly to PANT'S decisions. We push in closer as the death overs are briefly discussed, a wavering focus on PANT fixing his hair nonchalantly. RP (Rishabh Pant) Tom, switch overs with KG. Kagiso Rabada But I always bowl the 19th? RP Well, that was when Shreyas was the captain and now TC bowls the 19th. Rabada (Getting exasperated at RP’s calmness) But then, the whole plan will be backwards! I. Always. Bowl. The. 19th. Everyone from the team is observing this back and forth with pursed lips and silent judgements, senior players like DHAWAN remaining quiet on their own peril and ex-captain SHREYAS staying awfully quiet watching the chaos unfold. Must be thinking he’d never do that, or if this comes off his snubbing by the management will be fair. Everyone is annoyed. RP And right now you’re getting on my last nerve. Switch. Subtle glances are exchanged between TOM CURRAN and RABADA as they both exchange their positions in the team huddle, TC now standing on RP’s right and KG on his left. Everyone gets into position as FAF and RUTU come out to bat.
INT. ON GROUND
2
The game nears its end, as they, unfortunately, arrive at the penultimate over. DHONI comes out to bat. Harsha Bhogle (V.O) CSK are 173/6. Curran to Moeen for at 19.4, OUT! Ball flies straight to deep mid-wicket! Dhoni is comes the on strike now. 13 out of a possible 5 required to seal a win. Dhoni smacks itover the cover for FOUR! From four, only nine are required. That was beautiful stuff from MS, vintage Dhoni. Curran chooses to bowl full outside off in Dhoni's arc and manages to get an inside-edge, which because of his misfortune, goes for another FOUR! Kevin Pietersen Now just 5 needed from 3, could the skipper pull this off? Curran who is CURRENTLY under pressure bowls a wide. Goodness me! CSK requires four from three now. TC bowls short again, and Dhoni pulls it off for yet another, you guessed it, FOUR! That was VIVO IPL shot of the night for me. Sunny G Chennai emerges victoriously! They're in their ninth IPL final, and that man is once again in charge of the proceedings. A proper finisher that was missed and missed and missed! Not knowing what to do, PANT holds his head as other players watch with sour expressions. A good team, and a solid unit destroyed over one bad over. Another trophyless year for Delhi. SHREYAS takes a quick glance at the boundary to look at PONTING'S expression but averts his gaze quickly when he sees him standing with his hands on his waist and cap on the ground beside him.
INT. DRESSING ROOM, DELHI CAPITALS, MIDNIGHT.
3
The boys scurry in, dejected. PONTING comes through the side door reeking of disappointment. Punter That was the worst it ever went. Mohammad Kaif (Quietly) Yeah, that was miserable. DHAWAN puts an arm around RP as PONTING comes closer. RP I didn’t do anything, it was TC! PONTING, now visibly irritated. Rishabh! Stop trying to make TC happen. It is NOT going to happen! FADE TO BLACK.
Rijula Chakraborty
cricket cakes When I first got into cricket (12ish years ago) I discovered TMS, and was really intrigued by the idea of people sending cakes in. As a keen baker, I thought it was something I’d like to do. The first one I planned was going to be a lemon and blueberry cake, I’d got it baked and was getting ready to decorate it when the rain set in! That particular test ended up being a washout, so I had to wait. My first cake ended up being in celebration of Blowers’ retirement in 2017, and it got a great reaction, with quite a bit of chat on the radio about it! I didn’t get another chance to make one until 2019, when I made a cake and actually got to go up to the commentary box and meet the team - it was great! It was the Old Trafford Ashes test following THAT Headingley test, and we had a great time. Then Covid happened (cheers) so I had to wait a while, but I’d tweeted Carlos Brathwaite after hearing him on TMS during the pandemic, and promised him a salted caramel cake, which I finally got to make for him in November. I’m going to watch TMS Live in April, so that will be my next one - I’m planning on a cat shaped cake in honour of Tuffers! Julie Hall
Billy Pratt
Cover and graphics by Rhiannon Blake