Stands the church clock at ten to three, and is there honey still for tea?

English weekend village cricket is reason enough to love living in this country. Although to be strictly accurate, the players may be drawn from outside of the village and the village itself is probably manfully fighting off the spread of suburbanization, (is that a word?).

Despite this, drive past any village on a summer weekend and there will be a patch of green with 22 slightly overweight and red-faced gentlemen standing and watching two people heft a wedge of willow at a lethally hard leather ball. Sometimes they will exclaim and make unfathomable hand gestures. Occasionally one will break into a comedic run attempting to field the ball, usually thankfully outpaced by the one or two eager fit young bloods on the team.

Although at my age I no longer play, it is the perfect spectator sport, not least because at most village games there is only a handful of spectators. No standing in line to buy a ticket for your seat: no tickets, indeed most often no seats--just turn up with your own folding chairs, or watch from your car parked near the edge of the ground.

No need to understand the rules, the rituals or the finer points of the game either. Baseball can entertain people like me who haven't the faintest idea of its niceties and Cricket can do the same. If it doesn't, take a walk round the ground and chat with the players' partners and kids, the handful of senior citizens, their wives and dogs who are probably the only people watching or not watching with you.

The sad thing, to my mind, is that so few visitors from abroad will ever set eyes on this English scene. It's often mocked, as if village cricket were the quaint and private preserve of the squire, the vicar, former prime minister John Major and genteel people eating cream teas in about 1913. Something from Midsomers Murders - not so. It's alive and well--far more so than the professionals' county game--and it is truly English.

Find the time, drag yourself away from lumpish Buckingham Palace and the summer tourist tat of Stratford-on-Avon. Pick a sunny weekend, drive into the country, ask around for a pretty nearby cricket ground, and go see. And, hell, if you don't enjoy it at least your drive will have shown you something of England beyond the raucous (sorry, "vibrant") and often ugly display of its cosmopolitan cities.

A cricket tea.
From left: be-jammed scones, chocolate biscuit cake (in squares), sliced lemon drizzle sandwich cake, clotted cream (in bowl), sandwiches aplenty, more scones and crisps.

If you are very lucky you may well be invited to enjoy a cricket tea, along with both teams and usually taken half way through the match. Did you know that Cricket is the only game in the world that has an official stop for 'tea'? See David Crosbys comment further down the page.....

Cricket teas are legendary.....

They embody the very niceness of English sporting endeavours (no doubt why we rarely lift a major trophy), what with all their 'no no, after you', cucumber sandwiches, china cups and Battenburg slices. All village cricket clubs are very egalitarian about their teas. There is a rota for every home match, and the nominated incumbent of the week (usually a wife, mother or girlfriend or group of the foregoing) goes off and spends their budget on whatever they see fit. Of course, home baked or home made food is relished with a keen eye and held in great esteem.

Just as a footnote, the CSN concert was excellent - an acoustic first set followed by an electrified set. Thoroughly enjoyable and plenty of encouragement to sing along. Graham Nash did mention he had spent the best part of Friday watching cricket, England v Australia, along with David Crosby. All Crosby said was, 'your nice people but you play a weird game'....laughing.