Full Circle

In its early forms in the 18th century, cricket was a commercial entertainment, a vehicle for gambling alongside cock-fighting or wrestling. In the Victorian era, the sport was recreated as a means of keeping order in England’s public schools and increasingly allied with ideas of virtue and manliness. Then cricket took root across the globe.

From Australia to the Caribbean to Afghanistan, Oborne explores cricket’s expansion and its later role in decolonisation, education and politics, in this masterful account.