The Fictions of (English) Cricket: From Nation to Diaspora

Abstract

This paper examines the fictional representations of cricket and argues that they contribute to a definition of the game. It examines the fictions of cricket, showing that they construct the game into a most distinct English fiction. Literary treatment of cricket must further be read in the context of the transformations of the game in the nineteenth century, with the rise of athleticism as an ideology, and its role in the training of the colonial administration. The argument then concentrates on the decolonzsation, and perhaps the ‘defictionalization’, of cricket through the writings of C. L. R. James and Ashis Nandy. Finally, it turns to recent fictional perceptions of cricket, in particular to Romesh Gunesekera's The Match as well as Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, and argues that they emphasize the diasporic nature of the game.