Village cricket is a term, sometimes pejorative, given to the playing of cricket in rural villages in England. Many villages have their own teams that play at varying levels of the English cricket pyramid.
When organised cricket first began in the 17th century, matches were played between rival parishes or villages and this level of competition has endured. It contrasts with what may be termed representative cricket whereby a team includes players from more than one parish (e.g., a team that represents a county or a country).
Village cricket teams are often made up of local residents only, although some teams' first XI can include players with connections to minor counties cricket clubs and members of the academies of the county cricket club of the county in which the team lies.
In many non-professional cricket leagues, the adjective 'village' is a descriptor used humerously, self-deprecatingly, or, sometimes, pejoratively to convey a sense of amateurishness of some aspect of the team's (or an individual's) preparation, dress, conduct, or play.
Read more about Village Cricket: In Popular Media
Famous quotes containing the words village and/or cricket:
“There were those young men,
those village lands
and that youthfulness of mine.
People tell it
like a tale
that I must listen to.”
—Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)