“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.”

— George Bernard Shaw

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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George Bernard Shaw 413

Irish playwright 1856–1950

Stormont Mancroft, 2nd Baron Mancroft (1914–1987) British politician

A Chinaman in My Bath

“It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavours look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

In a Sunburned Country (US), Down Under (UK) (2000)

“A strange people, for whom it is out of the question that anyone can be moral without reading the Bible, and strong without playing cricket, and a gentleman without being English! And it is this that makes them so detested. They never fuse, they never lose their Englishness.”

José Maria Eça de Queiroz book Cartas de Inglaterra

Estranha gente, para quem é fora de dúvida que ninguém pode ser moral sem ler a Bíblia, ser forte sem jogar o críquete e ser gentleman sem ser inglês! E é isto que os torna detestados. Nunca se fundem, nunca se desinglesam.
"Os Ingleses no Egipto"; "The English in Egypt" pp. 159-60.
Cartas de Inglaterra (1879–82)

“Cricket is the most senior, widespread and deeply rooted of English games.”

John Arlott (1914–1991) English sports commentator and writer

Quoted in The Guardian Book of Cricket (1986).

“An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

“If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?”

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921) member of the British Royal Family, consort to Queen Elizabeth II

Said in relation to the proposal to ban firearms in the UK following the Dunblane shooting, as quoted in "48 of Prince Philip's greatest gaffes and funny moments" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/04/48-prince-philips-greatest-gaffes-funny-moments/, The Telegraph (2 August 2017)
1990s