To the uninitiated, cricket is as esoteric as the Kabbalah. To those in the know it, is a game of grace, speed and power. And therein hides the magic, because for many of its fans cricket is almost a philosophy, a way of life embodying a certain sporting spirit that can be carried into other areas of life. Some of the spectators may look half asleep, but in fact they're meditating on the finer points of play while keeping one eye on the weather and the other on the bar.
We begin with Papa M's I Am Not Lonely with Cricket, which is worth its selection as an opener for the title alone. A beautiful and strange instrumental, building its guitar structures slowly, evoking a hot day at county level, and lasting about as long as it takes to sip a pint in the sun.
History is inseparably tied to sport. Latif Nangarhari's Da Cricket Loba Dagatama Lar Aw Bar Afghanan Loy Afghanistan celebrates his country's admission to the highest level of world cricket. The music is traditionally based and very energetic, while the lyrics are in Pashto, giving Latif access to about 60 million speakers, though he lives in Birmingham these days.
Across the world in Los Angeles, the Compton Cricket Club is bigged in by Cloth's Bullets – a song, like the CCC itself, dedicated to fighting homelessness and gang culture with civility and dignity.
Over to the south-eastern Caribbean to Trinidad and Tobago now for an exuberant soca take on the game, Machel Montano and Claudette Peters's Come Rise with Me. Guaranteed to get the crowd on its feet.
While we're in the Caribbean we might as well catch I-Roy's Tribute to Michael Holding. Known as "Whispering Death" because of his quiet approach to the crease, Holding was one of the fastest bowlers ever to play Test cricket. "Michael Holdin', his performance was golden", declares I-Roy, in reference to Holding's six-ball destruction of England captain Geoffrey Boycott in Bridgetown in 1981.
The Duckworth Lewis Method's Third Man melodically shares with us the thoughts of an unsuccessful fielder who has been stranded in the middle of nowhere by his team captain in order to keep him out of trouble. He's dreaming of tea, in between recalling film scenes from The Third Man.
Roots Manuva's Again and Again describes the improvement gained by a poor batsman. Or at least the video does, expressing amusingly some of the philosophy embedded in cricket's traditions.
Jah Thomas's Cricket Lovely Cricket informs us that the game is actually quite straightforward. Forget philosophy: "All you got do is lick the ball before it reach the wicket."
It's not all glory though – as one country ascends, another declines. Back in 1990, fans of the Windies were wallowing in disappointment. Calypsonian David Rudder's Rally Round the West Indies pleads with the fans not to give up hope, using the team's misfortunes as a metaphor for wider political struggles.
In an earlier song, Lord Relator's Gavaskar Calypso, we note cricket's innate sportsmanship as Relator tells us that India's Sunil Gavaskar was the master batsman: "We just couldn't get him out."
Apparently rain stopped play in Pavement's Carrot Rope. They got beaten, and "the wicket keeper is down". In the video they're adequately attired for British cricket in yellow rain macs.
The Cavaliers' It's a Beautiful Game simply wants us to love the sport of cricket, encasing the names of dozens of its most famous exponents within a gorgeous melody.
The list
Papa M – I Am Not Lonely with Cricket
Latif Nangarhari – Da Cricket Loba Dagatama Lar Aw Bar Afghanan Loy Afghanistan
Cloth – Bullets
Machel Montano and Claudette Peters – Come Rise with Me
I-Roy – Tribute to Michael Holding
The Duckworth Lewis Method – Third Man
Roots Manuva – Again and Again
Jah Thomas – Cricket Lovely Cricket
David Rudder – Rally Round the West Indies
Lord Relator – Gavaskar Calypso
Pavement – Carrot Rope
The Cavaliers – It's a Beautiful Game
• Listen to these songs on a YouTube playlist.
• See all the readers' recommendations on last week's blog, from which sonofwebcore selected the songs above.
