- l A number of greats from the world of rock music turned up for the 25th anniversary celebrations of the charity Bunbury Cricket Club in England in 2011. Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman, Ringo Starr and David Essex were on hand for a gala night in London, also attended by members of the Ashes-winning England cricket team. Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings performed live on stage, as did Eric Clapton, whose set included ‘Crossroads’, ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ and ‘Wonderful Tonight’.
- An album featuring the likes of Eric Clapton and Elton John was released in 1992 to raise funds for the Bunbury Cricket Club. The LP The Bunbury Tails kicks off with the single ‘We’re The Bunburys’ by the Bee Gees, and also includes numbers from former Beatle George Harrison and jazz-funk bands Shakatak and Level 42.
- In the same year that he sang at an Andrew Flintoff benefit dinner, Elton John performed a series of concerts at some of England’s iconic cricket grounds. In 2006, Sir Elton put on shows in five counties – Sussex, Durham, Worcestershire, Kent and Somerset – that drew record crowds and much-needed finances for the clubs concerned.
“Every musician I’ve ever known would like to be a sportsman and every sportsman I’ve known wants to be a musician. They’re both great levellers and there is a feeling of togetherness – sport and music, more than anything, bring people together.”
Elton John
- Pankey Alleyne, a Trinidad-born trumpeter and part-time cricketer, was a member of the Caribbean All-Star Orchestra and the Fleetwood cricket club in the UK. It was his love of cricket that cost him his place in the band after turning up late for a concert dressed in his cricket gear. He became professional at Fleetwood in the Ribblesdale League in 1950, and continued playing the game until 1983. Alleyne said: “They still used to pick me and I felt embarrassed … my hair turning grey.”
- Steven Crook, an Adelaide-born fast bowler and singer, achieved his maiden first-class five-wicket haul at the home of cricket in 2011. A former South Australian Under-19 representative, Crook – who fronts the UK rock band Juliet The Sun – took 5-94 for Middlesex against Northamptonshire at Lord’s, only the second five-for of his first-class career which began in 2003.
In 2009, his band recorded a song, ‘Time for Heroes’, which became England’s unofficial theme song for the Ashes. Crook gave a copy of the song to county team-mates Graeme Swann, Andrew Flintoff, Monty Panesar and James Anderson and said: “The only problem is that being a proud Australian I’m taking a real ribbing from my band mates.”
- One of Britain’s best-known folk bands recorded an album of cricket songs in 1984. The Sound of Cricket by The Yetties, and featuring cricket commentator John Arlott, contained tracks such as ‘Cricket on The Village Green’, ‘The Flower Bowler’, ‘The High Catch’, ‘Four Jolly Bowlers’ and ‘Harold Gimblett’s Hundred’.
- Indian batsman Sanjay Manjrekar released an album of songs in the 1990s called Rest Day. It featured the favourite tunes of Manjrekar’s team-mates, including Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath. Vinod Kambli, who appeared in 17 Tests and 104 one-day internationals, also sang on the album.
- Described as a band with a “unique, genre-spanning blend of music they call chap rock”, The Don Bradmans is a British group formed in 2003. All members of the band are known as ‘Don Bradman’ – their debut album Across the Drewson Sea was released in 2010.
“The band’s name came about because our erstwhile drummer’s childhood friend in Dundee had a pet spider called Don Bradman. I thought that was a brilliant name, so when the band was formed I suggested that as a name. None of us knew of the famous cricketer. We’d never heard of him.”
Don Bradmans band member ‘Don Bradman’
- An organ recital staged at the Sydney Town Hall in 1931 recognised the world’s number one cricketer of the day. The initial letters of the composers of the items performed – from Balfe to Nemerowsky – spelt out the surname of Don Bradman.
- The debut album by Don Bradman’s granddaughter Greta was nominated for an award by the Australian Recording Industry Association in 2010.
Her follow-up CD to Forest of Dreams was a hit, debuting at number six on the ARIA classical music chart in 2011. Grace contained tracks as diverse as ‘Pie Jesu’ from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem and ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ from the animated Walt Disney film The Lion King.
Bradman’s voice has great range – a top E or thereabouts was on the menu – and a rich dynamic intensity. She is also capable of managing Handel’s crazily ornamented vocal lines with aplomb.
Rodney Smith, The Advertiser, 2009
Soprano Greta Bradman with the Zephyr Quartet at a concert in Adelaide in 2010
- Rick Astley, a British pop star from the 1980s, met his first girlfriend at a local cricket club. The singer later made Top 40 charts around the world with a string of hits including ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and ‘Take Me to Your Heart’. He said: “At the cricket club disco I asked Jackie to dance and she said ‘no’ because she didn’t like the record. I walked off thinking, ‘you’re a mug’. Later, ‘Tainted Love’ by Soft Cell came on, and I thought ‘that’s it, should I go and ask again?’ I was going, ‘go on, go on, no don’t, no don’t’ and I ended up walking over, saying ‘you dancing now or what?’ So we had a dance and that was it. I’ve been going out with her ever since.”
- Garry Sobers was immortalised in song in the 1960s with at least two singles, one by a legendary West Indies calypso singer, the other by a British actor. ‘Sir Garfield Sobers’ by Mighty Sparrow asked: “Who’s the greatest cricketer on Earth or Mars?/Anyone can tell you, it’s the great Garfield Sobers/This handsome Barbadian lad really knows his work.”
Cy Grant, a West Indies-born UK-based actor, also recorded a song in honour of Sobers in 1966 called ‘King Cricket’.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul has also been the subject of a number of songs over the years. One by Guyanese calypso star Dave Martins also pays tribute to Carl Hooper. ‘Hooper and Chanderpaul’ is a track included on one of his band’s greatest hits albums with the lyrics: “We must play Carl and Shiv/That’s how we have to live/For us to win this game/Guyana must combine Hooper and Shivnarine/This match is make or break.”
- To celebrate the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, West Indies calypso singer Alston Becket Cyrus released a cricket-themed album that includes musical tributes to Brian Lara and Courtney Walsh. Some of the tracks on the Cricket Is We Ting album include ‘Everybody Loves Courtney’, ‘Laramania’ and ‘Lara Again’.
Fellow calypso star David Rudder also released a cricket album – The Cricket Chronicles – in the same year. He said: “Calypso is still part of the cricket landscape but it’s more celebratory as opposed to the topical and heavy social commentary of the past. Caribbean cricket to many now is a huge party with a game taking place on the side.”
- In 2011, a former West Indies Test cricketer formed his own reggae band which he called Eleven. Spinner Omari Banks – the first player from Anguilla to appear in a Test – and his band released their first single ‘Move On’ in 2012. Banks said: “My dad, Bankie Banx, is a well-known and respected reggae musician, and musicians like Cat Coore and Tony Ruption of Third World, Junior Jazz of Inner Circle and Benjy Myaz and so many other great reggae musicians have mentored me since I was a young boy.”
Banks appeared in ten Tests and five one-day internationals for the West Indies during the 2000s, adding: “Since I was 11 years old cricket was my job, my priority and something I was blessed to do on the highest professional level. I really enjoyed my time playing cricket, but my passion is music.”
Omari Banks with his band Eleven
- A tweet was fired off during 2012 declaring that Australian batsman David Warner was recording an album. Another David Warner from New South Wales found fame in music, with Dave Warner forming the 1970s rock band From the Suburbs. Dave Warner also wrote a cricket book, Cricket’s Hall of Shame, which contained a foreword from former Australian captain Greg Chappell.
- Two first-class cricketers from the West Indies carry the name of one of pop music’s greatest. Joseph Elvis appeared in two matches for British Guiana in the 1940s, while Elvis Reifer shook his hips as a fast bowler for Barbados and Hampshire in the 1980s. A player named A. Presley represented St Cyprians in the Toronto and District Cricket Council League in Canada in the early 1920s.
- The year 2012 saw the names of hrtwo classical music composers join a Strauss on the international stage. A Wagner – Neil Wagner – made his debut for New Zealand, while an Elgar – Dean Elgar – made his debut for South Africa. During the previous year, the names of a Bach and a Holst appeared in junior cricket matches in Australia. Victoria Bach played for the South Australia Under-17s Women, while Brett Holst played for the Victoria Under-17s in 2010/11.
A player named James Taylor made his Test debut in 2012 for England. The eighth such-named cricketer to have played the first-class game, Taylor shares his name with the American singer-songwriter who had a number one hit with ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ in 1971.
- Adrian Wykes, who recorded a number of songs in the UK under the name Percy Pavilion, played cricket for Luxembourg. He also appeared in three matches for Cambridgeshire in the NatWest Trophy in the late 1980s, taking five wickets at 15.60.
Good enough to have once dismissed Steve Waugh, Wykes recorded two cricket-themed 45s in the 1980s. The Cricket E.P. was released in 1983, with ‘Calypso Intro’, ‘Cricket in the Jungle’, ‘Dolly Mixture’, ‘Mercenaries Cricket Club’, ‘You’re an Extra, Baby!’ and ‘Brian Johnston’s Nose’. He followed it up with ‘Gower Power’ in 1984.
- Members of a UK rock band stopped by to lend support to a charity cricket event in 2012 which witnessed the first non-stop cricket match to last 150 hours. Staff from Loughborough University played through wind, rain and hail to beat the previous world record by 45 hours. While a number of former England players acted as umpires, Graham Lambert and Stephen Holt from the alternative band Inspiral Carpets turned up to watch.
“Way back in 1992, the team I played for, CWS Manchester, had a midweek game against Delph second XI on a rainy Thursday tucked away north of Manchester in the rolling Saddleworth hills. We were a man short so I called Graeme Fowler, a friend of the band, to see if he fancied a game. He was free so a couple of hours later we turned up in the rain and cracked on with the 20-overs-a-side game.
“They batted first and scored around 90. Myself and Graeme opened the batting. It was a momentous occasion for me opening with ‘The Fox’. I was determined whatever happened I would still be batting when he had gone. He pushed, hooked and pulled before holing out on the boundary. I marvelled from the other end leaning on my bat.
“We knocked them off easily. I was nine not out off about 30 balls, but I wasn’t concerned with my slow scoring. I’d batted with a guy who had notched a double-hundred for England in India.
“For my cricket career, it just didn’t get any better than that.”
Inspiral Carpets guitarist Graham Lambert
- The daughter of a famous Test cricketer who played for two countries released a critically-acclaimed debut CD in 2008. Singer-songwriter Catherine Traicos, whose father John appeared in seven Tests, has supported a number of international acts that have toured Australia including award-winning British folk singer Beth Orton.
Singer-songwriter Catherine Traicos – daughter of a Test cricketer – with the band Starry Night
- UK classical ensemble Cantabile, also known as The London Quartet, paid tribute to the game in 2011 with the release of an album called Songs of Cricket. The four-member group recorded an eclectic array of musical items from Richard Stilgoe’s ‘Lillian Thomson’ to a medley of TV cricket themes and the England cricket team song ‘Jerusalem’.
- An album by a British folk singer that contained a cricket song was renamed and redesigned for the US market, with the front cover featuring a half-naked Roy Harper carrying a cricket bat. Harper’s 1975 release HQ was titled When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease in the United States.
His biggest-selling single, the seven-minute-long tribute to village cricket, was released twice, in 1975 and 1978. Harper said: “My childhood memories of the heroic stature of the footballers and cricketers of the day invoke the sounds that went along with them. Paramount among these was the traditional Northern English brass band, which was a functional social component through all four seasons, being seen and heard in many different contexts. My use of that style of music on ‘Old Cricketer’ is a tribute to those distant memories.”
The song makes reference to two famous England cricketers in the lyrics – batsman Geoff Boycott and fast bowler John Snow: “When an old cricketer leaves the crease, well you never know he’s gone/If sometimes you’re catching a fleeting glimpse of a twelfth man at silly mid-on/And it could be Geoff and it could be John with a new-ball sting in his tail/And it could be me and it could be thee and it could be the sting in the ale, the sting in the ale.”
- A county cricketer who was once touted as a future England Test wicketkeeper later became a full-time musician. Given his marching orders by Lancashire in 1954, Frank Parr – a trombonist with the Merseysippi Jazz Band – moved to London where he joined the Mick Mulligan Band: “All jazzmen are kicking against something and it comes out when they blow. If they knew what they were kicking against, they wouldn’t blow nearly so well.”
The trombone-playing Lancashire wicketkeeper Frank Parr
After the demise of the Mulligan band in the early 1960s, Parr became manager of clarinettist Acker Bilk who topped the charts around the world with his single ‘Stranger on the Shore’: “I’ve been extraordinarily lucky. I’ve made a living out of the two things I loved.”
“The professional cricketer is not just a man who plays cricket for money. He has a social role. He is expected to behave within certain defined limits. He can be a ‘rough diamond’, even ‘a bit of a character’, but he must know his place. If he smells of sweat, it must be fresh sweat. He must dress neatly and acceptably. His drinking must be under control. He must know when to say ‘sir’.
“Frank, we were soon to discover, had none of these qualifications. He was an extreme social risk, a complicated rebel whose world swarmed with demons. He concealed a formidable and well-read intelligence behind a stylised oafishness. He used every weapon to alienate acceptance. Even within the jazz world, that natural refuge for the anti-social, Frank stood out as an exception. We never knew the reason for his quarrel with the captain of Lancashire, but after a month or two in his company we realised it must have been inevitable.”
British jazz legend George Melly
- The award-winning blind British jazz pianist George Shearing was a cricket lover who retained his interest in the game after basing himself in the United States. The leader of the famous George Shearing Quintet, he often insisted that concerts in London be booked to coincide with Test matches. He was also noted for inserting cricketers’ names into songs – a Johnny Mercer composition made famous by Judy Garland, ‘On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe’ became ‘Atherton, Topeka and the Santa Fe’.
“It was obvious that if I was going to go out in the street to play cricket with a bunch of sighted kids, I was going to have to have somebody to help me. The main person who did so was a boy called Freddy. Going out with me to play cricket involved Freddy and me holding the bat together. Just holding the bat together is, of course, no guarantee that there’s going to be smooth contact with the ball, because Freddy has to move his arms when he sees which way the ball is coming. He sees it and I don’t. However, once in a while my anticipation is wrong. On one famous occasion, I remember an incident which – if it ever happened in a real game of cricket – would probably be described as ‘jaw before wicket’.
“Now most of us know about leg before wicket, but jaw before cricket is virtually unknown. In just the same way that a cricketer would make an unconscious move, for some reason I stood there fully conscious after this ball had hit me smack on the jaw – I repeat, fully conscious – and said ‘I’m out!’ In retrospect, I’m not sure if that meant I was out as a batsman, or I was out physically.”
George Shearing
- Australian pop singer Casey Barnes, who had a No. 1 dance hit with Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’ in the UK in 2008, once took 7-22 for his high school in Tasmania. A fast bowler, Barnes made a number of appearances in junior representative cricket teams in the Apple Isle: “… was the worst batsmen you’ve ever seen ... don’t think I ever scored over fifty.”
Barnes’s father coached a young Ricky Ponting at football, while his mother worked in the same bank as David Boon.
- An episode of the long-running BBC radio comedy The Goon Show which was later released on record features a cricket reference. ‘The Affair of the Lone Banana’, featuring Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, was first broadcast in 1954.
[A lone cricket chirping]
Bloodnok: Listen … what’s making that noise?
Seagoon: A cricket.
Bloodnok: How can they see to bat in this light?
Eccles: Major, Major. A man’s just climbed over the garden wall.
Bloodnok: A boundary! Well played, sir!
Seagoon: Bloodnok, you fool. That’s no cricketer, he’s possibly a rebel assassin.
Eccles: Oooh!
Bloodnok: Then one of us must volunteer to go out and get him.
Seagoon: Yes, one of us must volunteer.
Eccles: Yer, yes. One of us must volunteer.
Seagoon, Bloodnok and Eccles: England for ever!
– from ‘The Affair of the Lone Banana’ episode of The Goon Show, 1954
Another comedy sketch about cricket featuring Spike Milligan – first broadcast on radio in the early 1960s – was also released on vinyl. Two episodes from the third series of the ABC radio show The Idiot Weekly – ‘The Ashes’ and ‘The Flying Dustman of the Outback’ – were released on a Parlophone LP in 1962.
- The name of a famous cricketer gets a mention in a famous song of the 1960s. ‘$1000 Wedding’ by American singer-songwriter Gram Parsons, a member of the rock band the Flying Burrito Brothers, includes a reference to Doctor W.G. Grace.
- The Scotland-born Australian folk singer Eric Bogle, famed for his 1971 song ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’, released an album in 1992 called It’s Not Cricket. The record kicks off with his best-known composition and ends with the title track: “Tubby and Heals are giving Ricky Ponting tips from the comfort of the commentary box/Chappelli’s making awful jokes without moving his lips/He only opens his big mouth to change his socks/And I think that they’re the reason why I’m a cricketer hater/Those pontificating, self-inflating bloody commentators.”
- A decade on after scoring a top 40 hit in 1973 with the single ‘Gaye’, British balladeer Clifford T. Ward released a song about cricket. Included on his album Sometime Next Year, the song called ‘Cricket’ was released as a single in the UK in 1986.
- Irish musician and fast bowler Roger Whelan appeared in two one-day internationals for his country, dismissing two victims, one of whom would later release an album. Whelan took a single wicket in each match, with both being big-name Test players – India’s Sachin Tendulkar and South Africa’s A.B. de Villiers in ODIs played in Belfast in 2007. Later in the year, Whelan retired from all forms of the game to concentrate on his music career with rock band The Stimulants. In 2010, de Villiers appeared on the album Make Your Dreams Come True with South African singer Ampie du Preez, playing guitar and singing two songs.
- Blues legend Eric Clapton once gave his imprimatur to the singing style of a former England Test cricketer. The cricket-loving Clapton gave the thumbs-up to Surrey batsman Mark Butcher in the wake of his 12-track 2009 album Songs from the Sun House: “Great stuff, especially your vocals.”
Former England batsman Mark Butcher performing at a cricket match at Wormsley in the UK in 2011
“I met Eric Clapton through the Bunburys which is run by David English who used to be part of the management team that looked after Clapton in the early 1970s with RSO Records. He knew how much I admired him and he sat me next to him [at a cricket dinner]. After not being able to say anything for a good ten minutes I said, ‘Eric, I need to get this out there and then we can get on with the dinner … look, basically, I love you’. He laughed, then the ice was broken and we got on with dinner.”
Mark Butcher
- At the age of 70, former England batsman Geoffrey Boycott revealed that he’s a big fan of pop music with a particular fondness for Katy Perry. Boycott spoke of his musical tastes during the BBC’s commentary of the 2011 Test between England and India at Trent Bridge. He said: “I’m a good fan of pop music. I like that Katy Perry. She’s a good singer. ‘Firework’ … that was a good record that. I like the pop music. She’s nice, her. She’s tops for me. She just has something about her voice. It’s good, it’s clear, it’s strong. I don’t think I’ll ever meet her, she’s American.”
- On the advice of eminent lyricist Tim Rice, American rock sensation Alice Cooper attended his first game of cricket in 2012. Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the song ‘School’s Out’ which went to number one in the UK in 1972, Cooper paid a visit to Lord’s to watch the third Test between England and South Africa. He said: “When you watch a game on television like we do in the United States, you kind of get an idea of what it’s about. When you actually come to the place where it’s sort of born, and watch it, I suddenly know how this game is played now. I’m watching the strategy … I now have an appreciation for the game.”
Geoff Boycott (right) meets American rock star Alice Cooper in 2012
- West Indies star Dwayne Bravo teamed up with one of Jamaica’s best-known reggae musicians in 2011 to record a CD. The Test-playing all-rounder and Grammy Award-winner Beenie Man recorded ‘Beenie Man and Bravo’ that also features the vocals of Guyanese songstress Timeka Marshall.
- Before moving from Western Australia to New South Wales to further his cricketing career, Stuart MacGill was a part-time musician in Perth. The spin bowler sang with a band called The Dot Balls.
- Greg Page, an original member of the Australian children’s music group The Wiggles, played cricket as a teenager, once taking 50 wickets in a season. In 1987/88, a 15-year-old Page took 52 wickets at 11.00 in a junior tournament in New South Wales, winning an end-of-season trophy presented by Mark Taylor. Page said: “I’ll never forget that. I’m sure Mark’s forgotten it. Actually I’ve reminded him of it a few times. Yeah, he doesn’t remember it. He only remembers that I remind him about it.”
Wiggles member Greg Page, who took a hat-trick during a celebrity fundraising cricket match in the New South Wales city of Wollongong in 2010. Australian rockers Tim Farriss – from INXS – and Mark Callaghan – from Gang Gajang – also played, with the latter dismissing former England batsman Robin Smith
- Indian speedster and self-confessed rock star Shanthakumaran Sreesanth penned a song for the 2011 World Cup which he dedicated to his national team-mates. Sreesanth and his band S36 made its concert debut in the same year, a few weeks prior to the commencement of the showcase 50-over tournament.
- British violinist Nigel Kennedy is a big cricket fan, playing the occasional game for the Bunbury charity group. According to the club, the chart-topping Kennedy is: “ … a ‘monster’ performer. Borrows everyone’s gear, runs around like crazy. Batting, bowling, laughing, a genius.”
- A classical ensemble that rose to prominence at the Australian Chamber Music competition in 2005 took its name from a former Test captain. The Benaud Trio – named after Richie Benaud – has performed with a number of high-profile soloists and groups, and was a star attraction at the Boxing Day Test match at the MCG in 2006/07.
“Although we named ourselves after cricketing patriarch Richie Benaud, it doesn’t mean that we are not one hundred per cent serious about classical music. We spend a lot more time practising our scales than our bowling!”
Benaud Trio violinist Lachlan Bramble
- American singer Andy Williams, best known for his song ‘Moon River’, appeared in a celebrity cricket match at The Oval in 1972. Williams (pictured) turned out in a testimonial match for Surrey’s Micky Stewart representing the Vic Lewis XI. He opened the bowling after scoring 24 not out in his first-ever game of cricket.
The leader of the Vic Lewis XI was a famous British jazz guitarist and bandleader. Lewis was also a member of the Middlesex club committee for a quarter of a century from 1976. He said: “Cricket is just not another sport. Cricket is a religion, a way of life, a brotherhood.”
- When British politician Boris Johnson appeared on the BBC’s long-running radio show Desert Island Discs in 2005, he chose the network’s cricket theme as one of his favourite pieces of music. ‘Soul Limbo’ was an international hit in 1968 for American instrumental R&B band Booker T and the MG’s.
- West Indies superstar Chris Gayle did a new dance move on the pitch in 2012, going ‘Gangnam Style’ during the World Twenty20 tournament. After dismissing England’s Jonny Bairstow in Pallekele, Gayle broke out with the dance made popular by South Korean pop star PSY in his ‘Gangnam Style’ music video.
When the West Indies beat Sri Lanka in the final in Colombo, the entire team did the dance as the song was pumped out over the ground’s sound system. Gayle said: “When it came out, there was a lot of talk about it. That’s how I got into it. It depends what sort of mood I’m in. It’s a good dance to be honest. I enjoy it. Everybody does.”
Chris Gayle and team-mates bust a move ‘Gangnam Style’ after winning the 2012 World Twenty20 tournament in Sri Lanka
- While Ricky Ponting had no satisfaction with the bat in the opening Test of the 2012 Frank Worrell Trophy series, his spirits were lifted when he ran into Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in a hotel in Trinidad. Jagger, a cricket tragic, and Ponting spent some time discussing the finer points of the game in the foyer of the hotel where Jagger and the Australian team had been staying.
The cricket-loving Mick Jagger with local children at Gros Islet during a West Indies v Pakistan one-day international in 2011
- Bill Wyman picked up a few big names as a bowler for the Bunbury cricket club, once claiming a hat-trick at The Oval. In 1993 – the year that he left The Rolling Stones – he took the wicket of West Indies fast bowler Michael Holding with a googly. Wyman said: “I bowled Graeme Hick once, and he was really pissed. That’s what happened with Mark Ramprakash too … bowled middle stump by a leg-break that I don’t think he expected to spin that much.”
- Padmakar Shivalkar, who appeared in over 100 first-class matches as a spinner for Mumbai, recorded an EP in 1981 which featured the singing talents of Sunil Gavaskar. The four-track record was titled Life is Cricket. Shivalkar said: “I sang two songs on one side and Sunil crooned on the other. The numbers were often played on the radio, though I have no idea how many records were sold.”
- An award-winning pop group scored a nets session with the England cricket team at Lord’s in 2010. All members of Scouting For Girls are dedicated cricket junkies having played the game while at school.
“We are honoured to play the England team at Lord’s. It is the stuff that childhood dreams are made of. We’ve loved the game since we started playing at school, since then we’ve done much more spectating than playing so we look forward to humiliating ourselves in front of the best bowlers in the world!”
Scouting For Girls lead singer Roy Stride
Greg Churchouse and Roy Stride of the London pop band Scouting For Girls talking cricket and music in the BBC commentary box in 2010
- Somerset’s Dar Lyon, a high-scoring batsman who also played first-class cricket for Cambridge, had a musical flair composing items for a series of popular revues staged in London. The right-hander, who later became a Chief Justice of the Seychelles, appeared in 158 matches in the 1920s and ’30s with a highest score of 219.
- Released in 2013, David Bowie’s first album in a decade contains a reference to cricket. ‘Dirty Boys’, the second track on The Next Day, includes the lines: “I will buy a feather hat/I will steal a cricket bat/Smash some windows, make a noise/We will run with Dirty Boys.”
