Top 10 cricket scenes in fiction

Richard Tomlinson is the author of Amazing Grace: The Man Who Was WG, a biography of W.G. Grace, widely considered one of cricket's greatest-ever players. At the Guardian Tomlinson tagged ten top cricket scenes in fiction, including:

Netherland by Joseph O’Neill (2008)

Hans van den Brock, a Wall Street bank analyst, seeks solace from a broken marriage by joining Staten Island cricket club. One sweltering afternoon, a Trinidadian umpire called Chuck Ramkissoon orders a bowler out of the attack for delivering dangerous bouncers. The fielders protest and then scatter when a man wanders onto the field brandishing a gun. Ramkissoon stays put and persuades the intruder to leave the field. We already know that the umpire will die a gangster’s death, his handcuffed body dumped in a canal. Why then, does he deliver a homily after the game about cricket as a lesson in civility? In one passage of play (or rather, non-play), O’Neill sets up a sub-plot that deserves a novel in itself.

Read about another entry on the list.

Also see: Shehan Karunatilaka's top ten books on cricket.

Netherland is among Brooke Hauser's six favorite books about immigrants.

--Marshal Zeringue