‘We're all going global’: cricket's new rhythms in an age of revolution?

Abstract

This essay examines cricket's past and present relationship/s with music in order to track the notable continuities that are evident in the ongoing connection between the two cultural forms. The discussion also questions whether the so-called globalization of the game and all that is associated with the televisual spectacle of ‘entertainment’ mark new modes of intersections or are outgrowths of earlier forms, genres, tropes and popular musical motifs. It asks: how do and have cricket and music intersected, and is their relationship now structurally different to their relationship in the past, most notably the imperial past of England, Britain and the British world system? The essay is subdivided into five parts with each taking its title from a track on The Duckworth Lewis Method album of cricket pop songs from duo Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh.

Notes

^1. Bateman and Bale, Sporting Sounds, 1–2.

^2. McGuinness, ‘“Friday Night and the Gates”’, 183–4.

^3. MacLean, ‘Bouts of Kiwi Loyalty’, 237.

^4. The Duckworth Lewis Method, insert card, n.p. [2].

^5. Anthony Bateman, ‘Hits for Six’, The Guardian, June 16, 2009.

^6. Adam Sweet, ‘“The Duckworth Lewis Method”: Will Cricket Songs Be a Big Hit?’ The Telegraph, July 3, 2009.

^7. For critical sources on Irish cricket, see Bairner, ‘Wearing the Green Baggie’; Carter, ‘In the Sprit of the Game’; Gemmell, ‘Naturally Played by Irishmen’; and Read, ‘Cricket and Identity’. As well as these academic sources, a recent advert for Magners Cider used a small town Irish cricket team in Clonmel to advertise the cider brewed in the same town.

^8. Anthologies of cricket writing, but specifically cricket poetry, are in greater abundance than works on cricket and music. See, for example, Allen and Doggart, Breathless Hush.

^9. Allen, Song for Cricket, 1.

^10. See Birley, Social History of English Cricket, 31–43.

^11. See Allen's Song for Cricket, 12, for a full explanation.

^12. Ibid., 13–4.

^13. Ibid., 79–84.

^14. For a fuller discussion of cricket's function as a synecdoche of England and Englishness, see Bateman, Cricket, Literature and Culture.

^15. Cantabile, insert card, 7.

^16. Ibid., 17.

^17. The Duckworth Lewis Method, insert card, n.p. [6].

^18. Ibid., n.p. [3].

^19. Allen, Song for Cricket, 89.

^20. Ibid., 87–9.

^21. Ibid., 111–24.

^22. See , Athleticism; and Mangan, Games Ethic and Imperialism.

^23. Allen, Song for Cricket, 97.

^24. Ibid., 28–34.

^25. Ibid., 44.

^26. Ibid., 10.

^27. Ibid., 164.

^28. The Duckworth Lewis Method, insert card, n.p. [5].

^29. Interview with The Duckworth Lewis Method from Surrey TV, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 4VAJyxqHJK4 (accessed July 15, 2012).

^30. ‘Founder Message’, Barmy Army Website, http://www.barmyarmy.com/home.php (accessed July 20, 2012).

^31. See ‘Our History’, http://www.barmyarmy.com/about/index.php?m = history

^32. Cantabile, insert card, 30.

^33. Cantabile, insert card, 29.

^34. ‘Alistair Cook’, Barmy Army Website, http://www.barmyarmy.com/barmysongs (accessed July 20, 2012).

^35. Barmy Army, ‘Swann Will Tear You Apart’, http://www.barmyarmy.com/barmysongs/index.php?iCatID = 5 (accessed July 20, 2012).

^36. Barmy Army Home Page, http://www.barmyarmy.com/home.php (accessed July 20, 2012).

^37. Barmy Army, ‘Take the Urn Home’, http://www.barmyarmy.com/barmysongs/index.php (accessed July 20, 2012).

^38. Barmy Army, ‘Mitchell Johnson (He Bowls to the Left), http://www.barmyarmy.com/barmysongs/index.php (accessed July 20, 2012).

^39. Paul Winslow, ‘Barmy Army's Mitchell Johnson Sledge’, January 3, 2011, http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/cricket/barmy-armys-mitchell-johnson-sledge/story-fn67wv6z-1225980890875 (accessed July 20, 2012).

^40. ‘Barmy Songs’, Barmy Army Website, http://www.barmyarmy.com/barmysongs (accessed July 20, 2012).

^41. Frith, ‘Corruption in Cricket’, 52.

^42. Barmy Army, ‘Stanford’, http://www.barmyarmy.com/barmysongs/index.php?iCatID = 21 (accessed July 24, 2012).

^43. Ibid.

^44. See Westall, ‘“This Thing Goes Beyond Boundary”’.

^45. Barmy Army, ‘Stanford’, http://www.barmyarmy.com/barmysongs/index.php?iCatID = 21 (accessed July 24, 2012).

^46. For more details on the contradiction between cricket's pastoral image and urban development, see Marqusee, Anyone But England. Specifically Chapter 2, ‘The Prison of English History’, 27–54.

^47. Miller et al., ‘Modifying the Sign’, 25.

^48. Rowe, Popular Cultures, 104–5.

^49. Ibid., 10.

^50. Ibid., 106.

^51. Ibid., 101.

^52. Ibid., 102.

^53. See Ibid., 178–95, for the full unfolding of this argument.

^54. See Lazarus, Nationalism and Cultural Practice, 172–95.

^55. Bateman and Bale, Sporting Sounds, 2.

^56. Ibid.

^57. Crabbe and Wagg, ‘“A Carnival of Cricket?”’, 219. They also note the irony of selling the tournament as a calypso event, with stereotypical images of ‘West Indians’ in vibrant coloured shirts, when the tournament's success in England was set to rely upon the Asian and British-Asian cricket supporters who have constituted a much larger group than Afro-Caribbean supporters in recent years.

^58. Scyld Berry, ‘The World at Our Feet’, December 28, 1998, http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/74807.html (accessed July 1, 2012).

^59. Rodney Hartman, ‘Music to Play a Major Role in the 2003 World Cup’, June 5, 2002, http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/story/117633.html (accessed July 1, 2012).

^60. Interview with The Duckworth Lewis Method from Surrey TV, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 4VAJyxqHJK4 (accessed July 15, 2012).

^61. The Duckworth Lewis Method, insert card, n.p. [2].

^62. The Duckworth Lewis Method, insert card, n.p. [9].