The curious etiquette of village cricket

To the casual observer – blessedly ignorant of the unwritten mores and customs of our nation’s summer sport – it might be hard to see what the problem was. Last week, a gentleman by the name of Rikki Clarke, playing for Shrewton Cricket Club in Division Two of the Hampshire League, put the South Wilts 3rd XI to the sword. He scored 229 off 109 balls, including 22 sixes, and helped his team reach a mighty 385 for seven off just 45 overs.

Well done him, you might say, an impressive performance worthy of a polite round of applause from a handful of spectators and perhaps an extra scone at tea. The problem was that Clarke is more than just a bit handy. He’s a former Surrey allrounder who only recently retired from playing professional cricket. Indeed, he even played for England’s Test and one-day sides a few times in the Noughties. 

Clarke is therefore, in cricketing terms, a god who has casually sauntered down the pavilion steps from Mount Olympus to amuse himself for a brief portion of eternity by interfering in the affairs of mere mortals. When he posted about his performance on social media, the former pro was met with a backlash of vitriol. Scyld Berry, the Telegraph’s chief cricket writer, described Clarke as a shark swimming in a goldfish bowl and argued that such bullying of club players was against the spirit of cricket. 

Is it? It’s often assumed that laws – not rules – of cricket were etched in the same honey-coloured stone with which the Victorians constructed the pavilion at Lord’s and are similarly immutable. But in reality they have developed organically over time and continue to do so in order to maintain parity in the never-ending tussle between batters and bowlers. The “spirit of the game” is even more