Dimming of the Day

22 regiments, and suggests that the words of W.G.Grace (and then Lord Roberts) brought things to a stop. John Major’s More Than a Game 14 which describes itself as the history of cricket’s early years, ends in 1914. He says, The war that would be “over by Christmas” was greeted with enthusiasm. Young men rushed to enlist before it was over. They need not have hurried. A generation died, and cricket was not exempt. Finally there is Eric Midwinter, whose The Cricketer’s Progress: Meadowland to Mumbai 15 is dated 2010. Professor Midwinter’s thesis is that the war threw cricket into a stasis from which it has never recovered, and he says, The First World War is possibly the most significant episode in the history of cricket. The 1914-18 war abruptly stopped cricket in its tracks. It was cricket’s equivalent of the Fall of the Roman Empire, the collapse of a great institution, but one still able to cast influential shadows. He also mentions that in 1914 ‘net practice was stopped at the Oval because the players were being jeered at by men off the tram cars as they rattled by the ground.’ So there are some doubts about the rosy glow of the pre-war world: but what was it really like for those who were living and working through it? 14 John Major, More Than A Game , Harper Perennial, 2008 15 Eric Midwinter, The Cricketer’s Progress: Meadowland to Mumbai , Third Age Press, 2010 The Making of the Myth of a Golden Age