Lights, Camera, Action

• The first bowler to reach the milestone of 300 Test wickets later appeared in a UK Christmas TV movie. Fred Trueman played himself in Charles Dickens’ World of Christmas that debuted in 1974. The film also features Father, Dear Father star Patrick Cargill, whose nephew Robin Jackman played in four Tests for England in the 1980s.

Fast bowler and occasional actor Fred Trueman on the set of the Dad’s Army episode ‘The Test’ that first aired on the BBC in 1970

• In the year of his retirement from international cricket, England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff featured in a series of ads to promote the 50th anniversary of the TV soap Coronation Street in 2010. An unabashed fan, Flintoff declared a desire to make a guest appearance on the show: “I could easily fit in and I’d love to have a go. I heard Snoop Dogg is also interested in making an appearance. If he’s a fan, I’m in good company.” In 2014, Flintoff had a cameo in an episode of the UK TV comedy Trollied.

• South African fast bowler Dale Steyn took a week off cricket in 2013 to appear on the set of an Adam Sandler film. Steyn had a bit part in Blended released in 2014: “I was probably more nervous than playing in front of a packed cricket ground.”

• Nicholas Hoult, who starred in the ground-breaking British TV series Skins, learnt the game of cricket from actor Hugh Grant. Hoult got his big break in 2002, appearing alongside Grant in the film About a Boy: “When we weren’t acting we’d all play cricket. We had a big match at the end of filming and Hugh was pretty good.”

“Women do love a cricketer. It’s one of those things. It’s like Aston Martins. They just love it. I think they love the whites. They like the bit of red from the ball that’s rubbed off in the groin area.”

British actor Hugh Grant

• Cricket plays a big part in an episode of the popular British TV comedy The Goodies. A 1976 episode, ‘2001 and a Bit’, has the sons of the show’s stars attempting to revive what was then a long-lost sport.

• Jimmy Ellis, who played the role of Bert Lynch in the BBC police series Z Cars, played cricket for the Lord’s Taverners. In one game, he picked up the wicket of Denis Compton, caught behind by Jim Parks.

• British actor John Challis was once dismissed for 96 in a charity game when the ball came off his bat, hit the wicketkeeper in the head and was then caught at second slip. Best known for his 22-year role in the TV comedy Only Fools and Horses, Challis has also appeared in hit shows such as One Foot in the Grave, Coronation Street, Doctor Who and Z Cars.

“I feign serious injury at charity games, but that’s what you do as an actor.”

John Challis

• British TV, film and theatre actor Damian Lewis once scored a century against a team called The Grannies. Lewis later appeared in the top-rating US TV series Band of Brothers and Homeland.

“A cricket ball broke my nose when I was a kid so I couldn’t breathe through it. Before I had it operated on I used to stand on stage with my mouth slightly open.”

Damian Lewis

• Richard Attenborough’s 1969 film Oh! What a Lovely War includes a celebrated reference to cricket. Featuring an array of stars, including John Mills, Dirk Bogarde and John Gielgud, First World War generals are seen conducting their campaign from Brighton Pier with cricket scoreboards used as backdrops showing the number of soldiers killed in action.

The Academy Award-winning director of Gandhi, Attenborough once came a cropper in an exhibition match when he was felled by a cricket ball while fielding. Playing in a game featuring politicians and stars of stage and screen at East Grinstead in 1955, a ball sent down by Oscar-nominated actor Leo Genn to Walter Bromley-Davenport smashed into Attenborough’s face, sustaining an injury that required two days in hospital.

• Former England spinner Phil Tufnell made two appearances on the British TV show Family Affairs, a soap that ran from 1997 to 2005 on Channel Five. His guest appearances in 2004 followed his participation in the hit reality show I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, which he won in 2003. Five years later, Tufnell and his wife Dawn starred as celebrity contestants on the ITV game show All Star Mr & Mrs, taking the top prize of £30,000 for a nominated charity. His extensive TV CV also includes appearances on They Think It’s All Over, Simply the Best, A Question of Sport, The One Show, Strictly Come Dancing, Would I Lie to You?, The Chase and The Flowerpot Gang.

• The first episode of the BBC comedy classic The Good Life that made its debut in 1975 includes a scene of an office cricket team. One of its stars, Richard Briers, later appeared in another top-rating comedy – Ever Decreasing Circles – with an episode called ‘The Cricket Match’ first airing in 1984.

• Former Indian opener Sadagoppan Ramesh played a leading role in an Indian movie, Potta Potti 50/50, which debuted in 2011. Ramesh, who appeared in 19 Tests, had a bit part in a 2008 movie, Santosh Subramaniam: “Making films is far tougher than playing cricket.”

• The British Hollywood actor David Niven earned the nickname “Hat-Trick” at his school in Buckingham after taking three wickets in three balls in a match for the Stowe second XI against Eton. While an actor in the United States, Niven was a playing member of former England captain C. Aubrey Smith’s Hollywood Cricket Club in the 1930s: “The septuagenarian captain Smith commanded respect both on field and stage as he was six feet four, ramrod straight, alert and vigorous. Every Sunday he ordered me to turn out for the club, I always called him ‘sir’, and though dreading long hot afternoons in the field, I obeyed.”

Some of the big names to have played for the Hollywood club include Douglas Fairbanks jr, Laurence Olivier, Errol Flynn, Boris Karloff and Cary Grant.

Hollywood Cricket Club members Merle Oberon and David Niven (left), and Cary Grant posing in cricket gear

• Desmond Roberts, a British actor who appeared in 12 first-class matches in the 1920s and 30s, later became a star in Hollywood. When an Australian cricket team visited California in 1932, Roberts appeared in a match played on Don Bradman’s birthday. With 67, he was the only batsman to reach double figures for the Hollywood Cricket Club, with Boris Karloff scoring five before he was caught and bowled by Stan McCabe.

The day before, the Australian cricketers had paid a visit to the famous MGM studios where they witnessed a number of films being made by Maureen O’Sullivan, Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. C. Aubrey Smith later captained a British Born Film Stars XI against the Australians, with Roberts opening both the batting and bowling. Smith top-scored with 24, while Bradman made a half-century for the tourists.

Australian cricketers with the cast of the 1932 movie The Mask of Fu Manchu, including Boris Karloff (back row). Don Bradman is seated at far right in second row above C. Aubrey Smith, while Desmond Roberts is seated far left in front row

• During the 1930s and 40s, movie studios made much of the Hollywood Cricket Club’s celebrity status by trotting out its stars at games for promotional events. Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor made one such appearance on the sidelines of a Sunday match to promote their 1944 film National Velvet. On another occasion, Rooney had called on players at the club to teach him the finer points of the game in preparation for a role in an upcoming film, A Yank at Eton.

• Australian batsman David Warner forked out over $6m in 2014 on a house in Sydney made famous by a British reality TV show. The waterfront mansion in South Coogee was used as the set for Geordie Shore in 2013.

• The tale of a game of backyard cricket was turned into an Australian film in 2013 with its premiere taking place in the country town where fast bowler Geoff Lawson was born. The $300,000 budget for the film Backyard Ashes was raised through the selling of shares to residents and small businesses in the New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga.

“We jokingly say this is the ultimate underdog Australian film. We thought we can’t let this slide, it’s too good an idea. So we said ‘why don’t we shoot it in Wagga?’ We’ve got enough contacts here, we know the people, we’ve spent our lives working in that community. We were literally in mum and dad’s backyard when we went ‘why don’t we shoot it here?’”

director Mark Grentell

• Celebrity chef Clarissa Dickson Wright, who appeared in the Two Fat Ladies TV cooking programme, was an accredited cricket umpire. A player of some note at school, she regularly umpired village cricket matches in Sussex.

• An American TV series that won its first Emmy for outstanding comedy in 2010 includes a reference to cricket. In the final episode of the first season of Modern Family, all 11 members of the cast gather for a group portrait dressed in white, with the character of Jay, played by Ed O’Neill, mentioning cricket: “Look at us here all in white. What are we … a cricket team?”

• The 22nd episode of the tenth season of the US animated comedy series Family Guy features a scene of cricket. The episode, which originally aired in 2012, sees the characters of Brian and Stewie responding to viewer mail, with one segment featuring a British version of Family Guy.

TV commentator: Well, it’s a brilliant day for a long and confusing game of cricket.

The field is teeming with men in helmets who don’t seem like they need helmets, and men not in helmets who seem like they probably should be wearing helmets.

Oh, he’s batted it clear out of the stadium.

Is that good? We don’t know, but it’s what we do!

• During the making of a TV documentary for the BBC, Monty Python star Michael Palin drew the attention of the Vietnamese military while filming a cricket match in Hanoi. After tossing the coin in the match between British and Indian expatriates, Palin was ordered to turn off the cameras. Because the game was played on land owned by the air force, filming was deemed to be a security risk. The story gets a run in the fourth episode of the series Full Circle that made its debut in 1997.

I was born, brought up and first had cricket instilled into me in Sheffield where, if you believe William White’s history of the city, the game of cricket was recorded as early as 1757 by Town Trustees – and here I quote – “attempting the abolition of brutal sports by paying 14s 6d to the cricket players on Shrove Tuesday to entertain the populace and prevent the infamous practice of throwing at cocks”. Imagine the late Brian Johnston having to explain that in the tea interval.

As a boy growing up in the 1950s, without a television, let alone a mobile phone or a games console, when a social network was church on Sunday mornings – and “five of us lived in’t shoe box in’t middle o’t road” – I used to find great solace, and here’s a sad admission, in staging entire cricket matches, on my own, in our back garden. These were no ten-minute diversions. They were five-day games, played in real time.

Our kitchen was the Long Room from which I would emerge, via the back door, as whoever the current top opening batsman might be. If it was, say, 1955, I would be Hanif Mohammad of Pakistan or David Sheppard or Len Hutton for England. I would acknowledge the applause as I made my way slowly round the hedge, past the dustbins, to take up my position in front of the drainpipe beside the dining-room window. I’d take my time, checking my guard, adjusting my essential underwear, narrowing my eyes as I scanned an imaginary field, taking a deliberately long time before letting my gaze finally come to rest on the brooding black eyes and thunderous brow of an imaginary Fred Trueman, tossing the ball from hand to hand, up by the garage door.

His first ball pitches short, I swing, connect and it bounces unstoppably to the boundary. I barely need to run further than the dustbins before strolling back to the drainpipe, knowing that the fury I’d unleashed was going to make for a very exciting morning indeed.

Of course there could be frustrating moments. I might be Johnny Wardle, two runs off a whirlwind fifty, facing a rampant Fazal Mahmood, when my mother comes up the drive with her shopping and walks right across the pitch.

“What are you doing dear?”

“Nothing!”

How could I explain what it was like to be Johnny Wardle at that moment? To have taken eight for 42 in the Pakistan second innings, and to be two short of a match-winning half-century with the light fading fast?

“Have you done your maths homework?”

Looking back now I take comfort from the fact that my imaginary cricket matches did more for my later career than any maths homework ever did. In what seemed the desperately ordinary world of Sheffield, cricket fed my hungry imagination, kept me in touch with a glamorous world I knew I’d never be part of. In the same way I could read The Old Man and The Sea, knowing there was precious little chance of wrestling an 18 foot marlin in the River Don, or feast my eyes on Gina Lollobrigida, knowing that she would almost certainly never come north of Nottingham, I could, with the help of a stocky yellow Almanack, recreate Lord’s in my back garden.

For me many seventh heavens meet under this roof. One of my earliest heroes – in common, I’m sure, with many of my generation – was the swashbuckling Australian all-rounder Keith Miller. And just to be in the same room through which he must have strode after hitting seven sixes in one innings for the Dominions against England in 1945, one which lodged on the roof above us, is to have some kind of dream fulfilled. To be at Lord’s at all is to feel the gloved hand of history upon the shoulder.

– from an address by Michael Palin
at Lord’s in 2013 marking the publication of the 150th edition of
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack

• Monty Python’s John Cleese, who went on to appear in a number of Hollywood blockbusters, once dismissed the great Denis Compton in a schools match against MCC. Representing Clifton College in 1957, Cleese scored 13 not out in each innings against Tonbridge at Lord’s.

• In a break in play during the New Zealand-England Test match at Wellington in 2001/02, members of the crowd were given the chance to take part in a film. Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson stood on the pitch armed with a microphone and urged spectators to make growling noises that could be used in a scene in Two Towers.

“He came into the dressing room holding a cigarette holder, wearing a dressing gown, sandals and a t-shirt with a picture of Darren Gough on it.”

Lord of the Rings cast member Sean Bean on meeting fellow actor Peter O’Toole

• During the making of The Hobbit in New Zealand in 2011, British actor Ian McKellen took time off to be match referee-cum-umpire in a game staged to support victims of an earthquake that had devastated Christchurch. Hollywood actor Russell Crowe was also involved in the celebrity fundraiser, coaching one of the teams that included his Test-playing cousin Martin Crowe.

Russell Crowe, the junior cricketer

“You feel so close to the game. This is my second time at Lord’s. I came here in 2009. I wanted to come here earlier but my cousin, Martin, insisted that the first time I came to Lord’s I had to go with him, and I didn’t know why until he casually walked me through the Long Room and … ‘Oh, there’s Martin’s portrait.’”

Russell Crowe

• While filming The Lion in Winter in France in 1968, an internationally-acclaimed Hollywood actress had a lesson in cricket. Katharine Hepburn played the game with her co-star, the cricket-loving Peter O’Toole, declaring: “I was absolutely terrible. It isn’t as easy as baseball.”

Katharine Hepburn on the set of the film The Lion in Winter in 1968 and Peter O’Toole in 1991

• London-born actor Kunal Nayyar, who shot to fame in The Big Bang Theory, is a major cricket fan who co-produced and narrated the Indian cricket documentary Beyond All Boundaries released in 2014. Nayyar, who plays the role of Raj in the US sitcom, teamed up with filmmaker Sushrut Jain who documented three cricket-mad Indians and the frenzy that surrounded India’s participation at the 2011 World Cup: “When the director approached me to do the narration for the film, I watched a lot of the footage he had obtained shooting the film and saw what he was doing with it. I was blown away. Being a huge cricket fan myself and having followed Team India’s every move during the 2011 World Cup to see a film like this being made that captured both the intensity of the fan stories and the World Cup cricketers was awesome. I simply had to get involved.”

“I’ve never played here [USA] … there are leagues in Los Angeles, but it’s so hard to find the time. On Rules of Engagement there’s a South African-Indian actor named Adhir Kalyan, who’s a phenomenal actor and good friend of mine, and he’s a very good cricket player. He plays in a league and tells me about it. I’m just not good enough and I haven’t played in so long. I played a lot for fun and at school. I was never really great, but I was a huge cricket fanatic. For me, getting on the field was a dream. Anytime we had a moment, we’d go into our driveway with a tennis ball and cricket bat and play.”

The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar

• The American sitcom Rules of Engagement that debuted in 2007 includes cricket in an episode first broadcast in 2010. In the season-four episode ‘Harassment’, the character of Jeff, played by Patrick Warburton, and Timmy, played by Adhir Kalyan, square off with a game of cricket.

“They were so kind as to include a cricket episode in Rules of Engagement. I was born and raised playing cricket, and I have a great passion for it and I make sure that even here in the States I get all the games that are happening from in and around the world. I’m not one of these people who come from abroad, a foreign culture, and starts judging the culture here because it’s different, and I’ve really taken to baseball. The two sports share a lot in terms of the strategy, and the individual battles that happen, but each is a pretty special game. Though many people find them both to be long and tedious and boring, but I find them both to be fascinating.”

Adhir Kalyan

• Fast bowler Brett Lee, who took on the lead role in a major Bollywood film announced in 2014, is listed in the credits of an Australian blockbuster of the 1990s. The Oscar-winning Babe, a heart-warming film about a pig that starred US actor James Cromwell, sees Lee listed as one of the animal handlers: “When you think about being out on the cricket field, I’ve always looked at it as some form of acting anyway. When you walk over that white line, you take on this big, tough fast bowler [persona].”

“I have never really followed the game of cricket, but I quite like watching Brett Lee. I have been crazy about his looks since I was a young girl. He’s so yummy.”

Indian actress Sonakshi Sinha

• Nigel Havers, a BAFTA-nominated British actor of stage and screen fame, is a cricket enthusiast from way back who started playing the game at school when he was six. Havers is best known for his long-running stint on Coronation Street and for his role in the award-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. In 2001, he took on a major TV role involving cricket, playing A.J. Raffles in the BBC production The Gentleman Thief.

• The chairman of an English cricket club has been nominated at the US Emmy Awards for his role in a hit British TV show. Jim Carter – whose film credits include The Madness of King George and The Wind in the Willows – plays the part of Charles Carson, a butler, in the period drama Downton Abbey: “I run a cricket club, which takes up a massive amount of time. Takes up more time than Downton, almost.”

British actor and cricket fan Jim Carter from the UK TV show Downton Abbey

• Cricket plays a part in a South African film, Spud, released in 2010. Set in a boarding school, Australian-based actor Troye Sivan takes on the role of John “Spud” Milton, while John Cleese plays the part of his teacher: “Milton, that forward defensive was as porous as a whore’s drawers.”

• An Australian actor travelled from Hollywood to London in 1952 to seek funds for a film on the life and times of Don Bradman. Ron Randall – a former Sydney public school cricketer – was after £170,000 for his project: “I have been trying to get this film made for years, but in America, Bradman and cricket mean nothing.”

• Don Bradman makes an appearance in a 1936 Australian film called The Flying Doctor. Bradman played himself in the movie that won an award at the 1937 Venice Film Festival.

• Two of the stars of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 film had a go at cricket in 2014 during a promotional trip to Singapore. Andrew Garfield and Jamie Foxx received tips from Bollywood actor Sameer Kochhar, the host of a TV show on the Indian Premier League.

“Picked up the game of cricket in Singapore, you could say I’m a natural.”

US actor Jamie Foxx

• Former Indian captain Anil Kumble made his cinematic debut in 2008, with a bit part in the Bollywood film Meerabai Not Out. The movie also stars Mandira Bedi, who plays the role of a teacher whose great love in life is cricket and Anil Kumble: “Anil has a tiny role with me in Meerabai Not Out. I am Meerabai, a cricket-crazy fan. Anil is such a charming man … he took my wicket.”

• Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan made his acting debut in 2013 when he shot a scene for the movie Shob Kichu Pechone Fele (Leaving Everything Behind). The all-rounder made a grand entrance in the film, parachuting on to a local beach where he played cricket with five friends who are the main characters in the movie.

• British actor Francis Matthews, best known for his role as Paul Temple in the BBC detective series, introduced Hollywood actress Ava Gardner to the game in 1956. In Britain for the filming of Bhowani Junction, she reportedly said she thought cricket was a “stupid game”. Matthews, who also appeared in the hit TV shows The Avengers and Heartbeat, was a member of the Stage Cricket Club.

• The revered British television compere Magnus Magnusson is hailed as one of Iceland’s most talented cricketers. Born in the capital Reykjavik, Magnusson moved to Britain becoming vice-captain of the first XI at Edinburgh Academy. One of the defining faces and voices of the BBC, he fronted the Mastermind TV quiz show for a quarter of a century from 1972 to 1997.

• When a British film premiered in Sydney in 1930 one of the lead actors was on hand to spruik the movie, and to inform the audience of the latest cricket score. After speaking via telephone for several minutes promoting Rookery Nook, Tom Walls was asked about the latest score in the Ashes Test match at Lord’s. Not only did he reveal the total, “England, six wickets for 281,” he also listed the scores of each batsman.

• UK actor Roger Lloyd Pack, who appeared in the TV shows Only Fools and Horses and The Vicar of Dibley, once broke a finger while playing for Harold Pinter’s Gaieties cricket club. Lloyd Pack learnt the game at school in Hampshire managing a few matches for the first XI: “I think the highest score I ever made was 64, followed by 39 not out, and I can remember almost every shot in those two innings.”

• A highly respected West End theatre director played a part in the development of a young Adam Gilchrist. Hugh Goldie – who made his London acting debut in 1952 and staged his first production the following year – played cricket for Oxfordshire and was a stalwart of the Richmond club in London. As its chairman, he signed up a 17-year-old Gilchrist to play for the club in 1989.

• A 1991 episode of the top-rating US sitcom The Cosby Show features a scene of cricket. In the season-seven ‘There’s Still No Joy in Mudville’, the Bill Cosby character Cliff Huxtable (pictured) plays a game of cricket with two West Indian friends in the family living room.

A SELECTION OF TV SHOWS THAT CONTAIN CRICKET REFERENCES

The Adventures of Lano and
Woodley (Australia)

All Creatures Great and Small (UK)

The Big Bang Theory (US)

Bergerac (UK)

Blackadder Goes Forth (UK)

Bored to Death (US)

Brideshead Revisited (UK)

Brittas Empire (UK)

The Buddha of Suburbia (UK)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (US)

Californication (US)

Charters and Caldicott (UK)

The Comic Strip Presents (UK)

Coronation Street (UK)

The Cosby Show (US)

Dad’s Army (UK)

Desperate Housewives (US)

Downton Abbey (UK)

Doctor Who (UK)

Ever Decreasing Circles (UK)

Family Guy (US)

Fawlty Towers (UK)

Frasier (US)

The Good Life (UK)

The Goodies (UK)

Hancock’s Half Hour (UK)

Heat of the Sun (UK)

Home and Away (Australia)

House (US)

Housos (Australia)

Howzat! (Australia)

The Inbetweeners (UK)

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (UK)

Inspector Morse (UK)

In Treatment (US)

The IT Crowd (UK)

Keeping Up Appearances (UK)

Kingdom (UK)

Killing Time (Australia)

The League of Gentlemen (UK)

Life’s Too Short (UK)

A Little Bit of Fry and Laurie (UK)

Little Britain (UK)

Love Thy Neighbour (UK)

Lowdown (Australia)

The Magicians (UK)

Modern Family (US)

The Moodys (Australia)

Monty Python’s Flying Circus (UK)

Neighbours (Australia)

The Office (UK)

Outrageous Fortune (NZ)

Outside Edge (UK)

Packed to the Rafters (Australia)

Play for Tomorrow (UK)

The Prisoner (UK)

Rake (Australia)

Rules of Engagement (US)

Sherlock Holmes (UK)

Shooting Stars (UK)

The Slap (Australia)

The Straits (Australia)

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (US)

Summer Heights High (Australia)

The Two Ronnies (UK)

Underbelly (Australia)

West Wing (US)

The Young Ones (UK)

• When actress Catherine Zeta-Jones resided in the Welsh village of Mumbles, a cricket club devised a plan to take advantage of their local celebrity. In 2003, the president of the Mumbles Cricket Club, Mark Portsmouth, announced that any player who could land a six in their yard would receive £100: “It would have to be a massive six, but it would be fun if someone did it. Can you imagine them [Zeta-Jones and husband Michael Douglas] returning the ball?”

• Former England batsman Jim Troughton, whose grandfather Patrick was the second Doctor Who, made his acting debut in 2014 in a BBC radio show. Jim played the part of cricketer Colin Blythe in the radio drama Home Front: “I am surrounded by actors in my family … I’m not much of an actor, but this was more like reading than acting as it’s for radio and I had my lines in front of me. It was good fun.”

British actor Patrick Troughton, the second Doctor Who, and grandfather of Jim Troughton, who appeared in six one-day internationals for England in 2003

Jim’s father David Troughton also appeared in the Doctor Who series, while the cricketer’s uncle Michael Troughton has a long list of TV appearances to his credit, including Minder, The Bill and The New Statesman. Jim’s younger brother is Sam Troughton, who starred alongside Billie Piper in the 2005 horror film Spirt Trap, while his cousin is Harry Melling from the Harry Potter series.

• Within the space of a few weeks in 2013, two big names of film became cricket entrepreneurs. Hollywood star Mark Wahlberg, of Boogie Nights and Ted fame, was the first, taking an equity interest in the Caribbean Premier League franchise the Barbados Tridents: “I am a huge cricket fan now.” The Scotland-born Gerard Butler – whose film credits include Law Abiding Citizen and RocknRolla – then purchased a stake in the Jamaica Tallawahs: “It is obvious that this tournament is the home of the greatest party in sport.”

“He [Mark Wahlberg] was congratulating his team the other day for being unbeaten. But after playing my team, they were not unbeaten, let me just say that.”

Gerard Butler, whose Jamaica Tallawahs team took out the inaugural
Caribbean Premier League in 2013

• In the same week that George Bailey made his Test debut for Australia in the 2013/14 Ashes, Hollywood announced a sequel to the 1946 Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life. The Frank Capra-produced original starred James Stewart as George Bailey.

• Glenn Robbins, an Australian comedian of Kath and Kim fame, padded up for a celebrity cricket match at the MCG in 2007. Opening the batting with former Test star David Boon, Robbins faced three balls before losing his wicket for a duck to New Zealand fast bowler Danny Morrison.

• On the eve of the 2010/11 Ashes series, Shane Warne made his debut as a TV talk show host on Australia’s Channel Nine network. The one-hour variety show Warnie opened with viewing figures of 854,000 around the nation, but numbers dropped to below 500,000 by the second episode. The series was dumped with one show to go. In polls conducted by the Weekend Australian and Daily Telegraph newspapers, Warnie was voted the worst TV show of 2010.

• Albert Finney, who appeared in films such as Tom Jones, Murder on the Orient Express and Erin Brockovich, played cricket at school. Finney was a wicketkeeper in the first XI at Salford Grammar in Manchester.

Albert Finney (third from left, back row) with his school cricket team in 1953

• The esteemed British actress Peggy Ashcroft, who appeared in dozens of films and TV shows between the 1930s and 80s, once played in a ladies team against a male XI that included fellow actors Harry Andrews and Robert Shaw. Dame Peggy captained her side, with the men bowling underarm and batting left-handed.

• A former champion sprinter who was hired as a fitness trainer for the New Zealand cricket team in 2011 is the son of an international film director. Chris Donaldson is the son of the Australian-born Roger Donaldson, whose film credits include The Bank Job, The Recruit and The World’s Fastest Indian.

• Hampshire’s Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard appeared in 86 first-class matches in the early 1900s and wrote a novel with his mother that was later turned into a film. Don Q, Son of Zorro was rated by the New York Times as one of the top ten films of 1925.

• Among the throng to pay tribute to Sachin Tendulkar after he scored his 100th international hundred in 2012 was a leading Bollywood actress from Pakistan. An effusive Veena Malik declared she was an unabashed fan of the Indian batting maestro: “I’m a Pakistani, but I have prayed for a long time for this moment. Sachin Tendulkar doesn’t belong to one nation, caste or creed. His game is adored by cricket lovers all across the world and I am a super-duper fan of Tendulkar.”

Tendulkar’s historic milestone coincided with another momentous moment in Indian cricket. The retirement of long-time team-mate Rahul Dravid drew plaudits from Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan: “They say sport serves society by providing vivid examples of excellence. To me the most vivid and dependable has to be Rahul Dravid.”

Indian actor Shahrukh Khan, as a youngster, playing cricket

• The makers of a popular US film used cricket in 2013 to promote the comedy Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. The 50-second clip featured Will Ferrell as the hapless TV newsreader Ron Burgundy talking about the 2013/14 Ashes series which coincided with the premiere of the film in Australia.

“At this moment Australia and England are locked in a mighty battle of sport. A battle that has raged for 100 years. The pride of each nation is at stake. The spoils, an all-mighty trophy cut from the bone of the gods. He who holds this trophy holds the key to the heart of his nation. Behold the majesty of the prize … What is this thing? That can’t be the trophy. Looks like a shot glass-sized urn. Is this a joke? This is what they’re fighting for? I give up!”

• Nasser Hussain, the Indian-born former England Test captain, scored an acting gig in a major Bollywood film released in 2011. A number of other big-name cricketers make an appearance in Patiala House, including Andrew Symonds, Kieron Pollard, Herschelle Gibbs and Shaun Tait.

Actor Akshay Kumar (pictured), who played the lead character, took his role so seriously he hired a former Test match bowler to improve his technique: “I think I am a good enough bowler now to play on a national level.”

• When the British comedian and actor Terry-Thomas moved to the United States in the 1960s to further his career, he found time to play the occasional game of cricket. Appearing in Hollywood films such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and How to Murder Your Wife, Thomas once played in a charity match alongside fellow actors Joan Collins, Milton Berle and Carroll Baker.

Terry-Thomas (far right) with fellow actors Peter Sellers (second from left) and Eric Sykes (front), during a charity cricket match in 1957

• A British comedy from 1934 that revolves around a cricket match has been listed as one of the “most wanted films of all time”. Badger’s Green (pictured), starring Valerie Hobson and Bruce Lester, is included on the British Film Institute’s register of movies missing from its collection.

The story is set in the quiet and secluded district of Badger’s Green, just at the time of the opening of the cricket season. But the peace is a very short-lived one, for along comes a Mr Butler with a huge development scheme – a scheme to provide rows upon rows of bungalows, places of entertainment, a sanitary laundry and all that goes to making a modern village. The bigwigs are immediately up in arms at the proposal, the doctor, the major and the third citizen resolutely agreeing to stand together to prevent this outrage. It is left, however, for a cricket match to decide the issue – and, although the Badgers are defeated, Mr Butler withdraws his scheme as a token of respect to the doctor, who risked his life for the village.

Daily Film Renter, 1934

• Oliver Gordon, who reportedly took over 6,000 wickets in club cricket in England, was an actor of some note appearing in a number of films in the 1930s. His cricketing career spanned half a century, playing for Harrow, MCC and Buckinghamshire.

• Venkatesh Prasad and Javagal Srinath opened the bowling for India in a number of Tests in the 1990s and early 2000s later appearing alongside each other in a film. The two fast bowlers had parts in the 2014 movie Sachin! Tendulkar Alla (Sachin, not Tendulkar), with Prasad taking on the role of a coach to an autistic cricket-loving boy named Sachin: “At first, I told him [the director] that I would not be interested, but as I listened to the story and my character narration, I was intrigued. Add to that the fact that Suhasini [Maniratnam] was in the film, and I was hooked. Suhasini is a dear friend of the family, and, as an actress who has done hundreds of films, we have sort of grown up on her work. I took up the film only for her.”

A SELECTION OF MODERN-DAY MOVIES THAT CONTAIN CRICKET REFERENCES

Animal Kingdom (Australia 2010) Backyard Ashes (Australia 2013)

Becoming Jane (UK 2007)

The Big Lebowski (US 1998)

Cemetery Junction (UK 2010)

The Darjeeling Limited (US 2007)

The Deal (US 2008)

Dean Spanley (UK 2008)

Fool’s Gold (US 2008)

Frost/Nixon (US 2008)

Hansie (South Africa 2008)

Hat Trick (India 2007)

Heavenly Creatures (NZ 1994)

Hit for Six! (Barbados 2007)

I Know How Many Runs You Scored Last Summer (Australia 2009)

I Love You Too (Australia 2010)

The Inbetweeners 2 (UK 2014)

Iqbal (India 2005)

Jerry Maguire (US 1996)

Lagaan (India 2001)

Look Both Ways (Australia 2005)

Meerabai Not Out (India 2008)

Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War (UK 2000)

Main Hood Shahid Afridi (Pakistan 2013)

Nanny McPhee (UK 2005)

Notes on a Scandal (UK 2006)

Oblivion (UK 2003)

Outsourced (US 2006)

Patiala House (India 2011)

Potta Potti 50/50 (India 2011)

Run Fatboy Run (UK 2007)

Sachin! Tendulkar Alla (India 2014)

Safe House (US 2012)

Save Your Legs! (Knocked for Six) (Australia 2012)

Seducing Doctor Lewis (Canada 2003)

Shaun of the Dead (UK 2004)

Sinhawalokanaya (The Cricket Film) (Sri Lanka 2011)

Slumdog Millionaire (UK 2008)

Snowtown (Australia 2011)

Something Borrowed (US 2011)

Spud (South Africa 2010)

The Square (Australia 2008)

Stumped (India 2003)

Tangiwai – A Love Story (NZ 2011)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (US 1990)

Texas Killing Fields (US 2011)

Tom Brown’s Schooldays (UK 2005)

Victory (India 2008)

Wolf Creek 2 (Australia 2014)

Wondrous Oblivion (UK 2003)

Zero Dark Thirty (US 2012)

• A famous face from 1980s American TV was spotted during the fifth Test of the 2010/11 Ashes in Sydney with David Hasselhoff soaking up proceedings on day two. In Australia to promote a brand of ice cream, the star of Knight Rider and Baywatch (pictured) turned up with Mark Holden, a former judge on the TV show Australian Idol.

• A cult American TV series and a cult Australian cricketer were credited in 2013 as the main contributors to a steep rise in the sales of a brand of whisky. Former Australian batsman and well-known beer drinker David Boon switched sides in 2011 by taking part in an advertising campaign for Canadian Club pre-mixed drinks. At the same time, the Mad Men TV series featured the character Don Draper – a Manhattan advertising executive – drinking Canadian Club. Two years later, Canadian Club became the first new brand in a decade to break into the Australian top ten ready-to-drink list.

• Sussex wicketkeeper Rupert Webb later became an actor, scoring a role in the 1994 romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral. Webb, who kept for Sussex throughout the 1950s, married actress Barbara Whatley, who had reportedly turned down a marriage proposal from Elvis Presley during the making of a film in the United States.

• While England were taking on Australia in 2010/11, a former Ashes-winning captain and an Aussie TV star did battle in a match organised by London’s Metropolitan Police. Mike Gatting and Gold Logie award-winning actor Ray Meagher, of Home and Away fame, led two teams of schoolchildren with Gatting’s side winning by two runs.

Mike Gatting and Australian actor Ray Meagher in London in 2010 promoting children’s participation in sport

• An Oscar-winning American film star was guest of honour at a Twenty20 cricket match staged in Los Angeles in 2008. Billed as the “Hollywood Ashes”, Braveheart star Mel Gibson tossed the coin for the inaugural game that featured a former Australian captain. In his first match since his retirement in 2004, Steve Waugh scored 40 off 26 balls, including a six that came close to cleaning up Gibson in the VIP tent.

Australian actor Cameron Daddo played in the 2009 edition, scoring 23 off 17 balls, while former Queensland fast bowler Michael Kasprowicz captained the side and top-scored with an unbeaten 29.

British actor Julian Sands bowling in a Hollywood Twenty20 match

THOMAS PLANT’S DREAM TEAM

David Gower (E)

Alec Stewart † (E)

Viv Richards * (WI)

Ian Botham (E)

Andrew Flintoff (E)

Imran Khan (P)

Vic Marks (E)

Shane Warne (A)

Merv Hughes (A)

Brett Lee (A)

Phil Tufnell (E)

British auctioneer Thomas Plant, from the TV shows Bargain Hunt, Antiques Roadshow and Flog It!

DAVID HARPER’S DREAM TEAM

Ricky Ponting (A)

Steve Waugh * (A)

Brian Lara (WI)

Sachin Tendulkar (I)

Ian Botham (E)

Jacques Kallis (SA)

Richard Hadlee (NZ)

Adam Gilchrist † (A)

Shane Warne (A)

Glenn McGrath (A)

Fred Trueman (E)

BBC TV antiques expert David Harper

• Sarah Potter, the daughter of British screenwriter Dennis Potter, scored a Test century for England. Appearing in the fourth of her seven Tests, Potter hit 102 against India at Worcester in 1986. An opening fast bowler, Potter took eight wickets in Tests and ten in one-day internationals.

“I was lucky that I worked for my father. He was often understandably short-tempered about my typing errors or sloppy filing, but even when we were full-on, say, trying to get out the scripts for The Singing Detective, he never once stopped me from running off towards the river, where our local sports centre and the cricket nets were, bat tucked under my arm.”

Sarah Potter

• British comedian Tony Hancock was a highly-regarded cricketer at school, achieving a record haul of 70 wickets in 1937. In 1958, Hancock was playing in a charity match and trapped Australian captain Ian Craig in front with his second ball. But the umpire turned down his appeal, saying the crowd had turned up to watch the Australians bat.

• One of America’s leading child actors of the 1930s later went on to play for the United States national cricket team. Cliff Severn (pictured), whose film credits include A Christmas Carol and How Green Was My Valley, was a pioneer of the game in California playing for the Hollywood Cricket Club alongside fellow thespian C. Aubrey Smith. At the age of 39, Severn made his debut for the United States against Canada in Calgary in 1965, scoring 26 and four batting at No. 6.

• In an appearance on the US TV show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in 2012, Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe played cricket on stage with the host. In the same year, Fallon also played cricket on the set with UK actor Hugh Laurie, star of the Blackadder comedy series and the US medical drama House.

In 1995, Laurie opened the bowling in a celebrity cricket match against a team of England women players at Roehampton. After being run out for ten, Laurie opened the bowling attack with EastEnders star Leslie Grantham (1-23), finishing up on the losing side with figures of 0-23.

Jimmy Fallon: One point two billion people watched the 2011 cricket World Cup this week. Unfortunately, reaction to the cricket World Cup over here in America was … [crickets chirping].

– from the US chat show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 2011

• Popular US actor Matthew McConaughey became a big fan of cricket when he travelled around Australia in the late 1980s. The star of blockbusters such as The Lincoln Lawyer and The Wolf of Wall Street, McConaughey cottoned on to the game while working at a farm in regional New South Wales: “We’d come in for a ‘smoko’, and put the cricket on. And I’m talking the full-on, five-day matches, back when Curtly Ambrose and Desmond Haynes were rollin’ for the West Indies. I also went to two West Indies-Australia matches and I remember my days at the Tests – you eat a hot dog, you take a nap, you wake up, then maybe you catch the first wicket. Then you drink some beer and then take another nap. It was cool man.”

• Lou Ferrigno, who found fame on television screens as The Incredible Hulk, once appeared in a testimonial cricket match for a former England Test cricketer. The internationally-renowned bodybuilder and actor was a guest at the match in Los Angeles in 1981 for Norman Gifford, who later captained England at the age of 44 in a one-day international series at Sharjah in 1984/85.

• A 2015 World Cup moment was picked up a major TV network in the United States with Pakistan’s Haris Sohail named the “World’s Worst Person in Sports”. Sohail was reportedly spooked by what he claimed was a ghost in his hotel room in Christchurch, with Keith Olbermann (pictured) handing the Pakistan batsman the unwanted award on his top-rating ESPN sports show.