{"id":257105,"date":"2026-08-10T16:46:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/10\/the-cricket-fiction-of-sassoon-and-de-selincourt-isnt-in-a-bucolic-dreamworld-letter\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T16:46:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:46:18","slug":"the-cricket-fiction-of-sassoon-and-de-selincourt-isnt-in-a-bucolic-dreamworld-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/10\/the-cricket-fiction-of-sassoon-and-de-selincourt-isnt-in-a-bucolic-dreamworld-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"The cricket fiction of Sassoon and De S\u00e9lincourt isn\u2019t in a \u2018bucolic dreamworld\u2019 | Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Your leader (The Guardian view on sporting fair play: it was never quite cricket, 30 July<\/a>) recycles the persistent caricature of Siegfried Sassoon\u2019s, Hugh de S\u00e9lincourt\u2019s and AG Macdonell\u2019s cricket fiction as existing in a \u201cbucolic dreamworld\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sassoon\u2019s The Flower Show Match is set against the background of the Boer war, with recurring references to the relief of Ladysmith. The home umpire is also suspected of using his wooden leg to make dents in the pitch.<\/p>\n

In De S\u00e9lincourt\u2019s The Cricket<\/a> Match, a war profiteer has felled the fir trees surrounding the Tillingford ground to have them sawn into pit props. The club is struggling to recover from the war, and there\u2019s a feeling of \u201cmelancholy certainty that each season must surely be the last\u201d. There are passing references to the Russian Revolution, and the hope expressed by the lady of the manor that village cricket will ease class antagonism is contradicted by the contempt the team\u2019s fast bowler, a labourer, feels for her public-school son who also plays for Tillingford.<\/p>\n

Macdonell\u2019s England, Their England is pervaded with the after-effects of the first world war. Its Scottish protagonist who is inquiring into the vaunted English principle of \u201cteam spirit\u201d said to characterise the national game is none the wiser after a day spent with a motley team of metropolitan writers and publishers playing away in a Kent village.
Rod Edmond<\/strong>
Author of Cricket, Fiction and Nation<\/em><\/p>\n