Cricket is sexist and elitist? Just like the Church of England then

Village cricket, like the Church, is a model of diversity, argues George Pitcher, not entirely convincingly

We held our Vicar’s XI v. Village XI cricket match in our parish last weekend – my team came within four overs of a draw, since you ask. So we’re improving.

It’s become a village tradition, though we’ve only played the fixture twice. That’s because it’s been rained off, then there was covid. And one year the village simply forgot to field a team (so I guess that counts as a bye for the vicar).

Vicar v. Village: The vicar kneels to the far left, as always

Within a moon or two of us retiring to the pub as shadows lengthened, for beer and rounds of ancient toss-a-penny, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (Icec) published a huge report that stated without reservation that racism, classism, elitism and sexism are “widespread and deep-rooted” in the sport.

Well I never. My first response is not as apologetic as the England and Wales Cricket Board, which called it a “seminal moment”. I’m afraid my point is that cricket, then, must be just like the Church of England. In fact, cricket is the Church of England at play.

Colonialism and imperialism

I suppose a case could be mounted that both were founded and prospered in colonialism and imperialism. This column is not that case. I just want to ask what were we doing on a cricket square in East Sussex that was racist, classist, elitist or sexist?

I mean, only about 20 per cent of the players on our field at any given time were educated at Eton. And last year we had a 19-year-old young woman called Izzy on our side who had played for Surrey and took five wickets. Okay, we were all men this year, but one of us was (and remains) from an ethnic minority. How diverse is that?

Other than the Archbishop of Canterbury, I don’t off-hand know how many Church of England clerics went to Eton. But I do know that its representation of women and ethnic minorities remains as allegedly tokenistic as our cricket team. The most recent figures reveal 93.7 per cent of senior staff in the Church - including bishops, archdeacons and cathedral clergy - were white British. And let’s not add up the men.

Tea and the English bourgeoisie

As for classism and elitism (aren’t these essentially the same?), the signs are more subtle. Here, though, our cricket and the Church are again as one. I believe that cricket is the only international sport that breaks for tea, an institution embedded in the English bourgeoisie.

The Church is also obsessed with tea. A foreigner to England’s shores might assume that this is a hot beverage. In actuality, the cricket tea involves cakes and sandwiches and scones with lashings of cream and jam. Last weekend, we added a side of salmon with hollandaise and new potatoes; the year before, pizzas. Similarly, parish teas make their priests cut figures like Ian “Beefy” Botham in his prime.

Camp and homoerotic

Then there’s the dressing up. I think that cricket is probably the only field game that men play fully clothed. Some of this kit is quite camp, with its whites and sleeveless jumpers, badges, caps and protective boxes for family jewels. Some might even go as far as suggesting that the game is homoerotic, with all that crouching in positions that exhibit tautly clad posteriors.

The resonances with the posh, dressing-up wing of the Church are obvious. I mean no particular disrespect to my Anglo-Catholic brothers (and few sisters), but look at all that robing with Latin-named vestments and the prancing about therein. It’s cricket without balls, isn’t it?

Decent fellows

As to the less visible similarities, I believe there is a moral high ground claimed erroneously by both sports, if I can include the Church as such. Cricket is thought to be played by decent fellows who play up and play the game. The Church would like to be considered in the same way.

But, while both present a placid and gentle exterior, they conceal a viciously competitive interior life. Anyone who has attended a General Synod will have seen that from the houses of bishops to laity. Cricket, from its sledging insults to bodyline controversies and tampered balls, is similarly morality-free under the surface.

A full toss above waist height

Simon Heffer, who wrote in the Daily Telegraph this week that Icec’s report is “nakedly political social engineering”, was umpiring our village match last weekend. I thought there might be an international incident when, between overs, he took his fellow umpire, an Australian, to task over whether a full-toss delivered above the batsman’s waist height should be scored as a no-ball.

Perhaps it was the tension of the current Ashes, but it’s the sort of issue, like angels on a pinhead, that religious wars can be fought over.

Cruelly persecuted minority

It occurs to me that Professor Heffer, whose son Johnnie (Eton) was bowling for us demonically while his friend Adam (Eton) was keeping wicket, is from that cruelly persecuted minority of the ginger-haired, so I suppose that’s another diversity box ticked for us. This is rather, I think, how the CofE addresses its diversity.

They say that the only thing worse than not taking village cricket seriously enough is taking it too seriously. The same might be said of the Church. And I hope, readers will agree, of this column.

George Pitcher is a visiting fellow at the LSE and an Anglican priest