Unusual cricket venues...

Quite excellent article that I have taken from ESPNcricinfo, detailing some of the more bizarre cricketing venues across the globe.

Some of these are outrageous, and I'd love to get involved in a game at each of them! Are there any more you can think of? Perhaps the cricket square in the middle of Corfu town, a lasting mark of the British Empire there.

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Mount Everest
A group including the Essex allrounder Graham Napier and Nottinghamshire batsman Mark Wagh played a six-a-side eight-over game at the Everest base camp late in 2007. Two years later another intrepid group contested an 11-a-side match up the mountain, on a plateau called Gorak Shep, 17,000 feet (5165 metres) above sea level.

A frozen lake
The lake at St Moritz in Switzerland has staged several cricket matches since 1988, often for charity, to the probable bemusement of passing goatherds. After one such game the former England captain David Gower returned to his car, which he had parked on the frozen lake, to find a hole in the ice and no car.

The South Pole
Early in 2012 the 100th anniversary of Captain Scott's ultimately tragic polar expedition was marked by a game of cricket at the end of an expedition by a team of British adventurers led by former SAS officer Neil Laughton. "I thought it was quintessentially British," he told the BBC, "and I wanted to do something that does not happen down here very often." Britain beat the Rest of the World by two wickets in the match, which was played in temperatures touching -35°C.

Underground
Two teams that have staged Yuletide matches in various unlikely places planned to play one underground, in a cave in a Lake District slate mine, at the end of 2011. They thought it was impossible that the weather could intervene - but were prevented from entering the mine by heavy snow.

In the sea
The Brambles sandbank between Southampton and the Isle of Wight emerges above the water only once a year, for about an hour. When it surfaces, a flotilla of small boats, carrying members of two local yacht clubs, descend upon it and play a game of cricket.

On all seven continents
Harry Thompson's amusing book Penguins Stopped Play, which was published shortly after his untimely death from cancer in 2005, chronicles the attempts by his wandering side, the Captain Scott XI, to undertake a world tour that involved matches on every continent. The title rather gives the game away about what happened when Thompson tried to play in Antarctica.

In the woods in Moscow
The 1951 Wisden records how the future British prime minister Harold Wilson - then the president of the Board of Trade - took part in an impromptu game of cricket in the woods during a break in a meeting in Moscow. Wilson recalled, during a speech to mark the centenary of John Wisden & Co: "My second over was interrupted by a gentleman from the NKVD [the Soviet secret police], who was appointed to follow us around and see that we came to no harm. He stood in the middle of the pitch and remonstrated with us in a very long Russian speech... He was supported by two men who came up on horseback with rifles. I persuaded him, after some negotiation, to take up his position at square leg, out of the way of even my bowling."

The Natural History Museum
A charity match to raise money for the Ben Hollioake Fund (commemorating the England cricketer who died in a car crash in 2002) was held on an ice rink outside London's Natural History Museum in December 2006.

A frozen river in Sweden
One of the most remarkable of cricket pictures features a match on a frozen river in Sweden, with what looks like a ferry ready for the catch at long-on. One company specialises in insurance for ice cricket, but points out: "While playing on ice makes the game more exciting, varied and unpredictable, it also means that it is easier to sustain an injury whilst playing it. It also comes with the inherent risk of problems such as hypothermia."

The North Pole
Forget that boring travelling to cricket matches by car business. In 1991 several intrepid souls emerged from their submarines - the British Tireless and the Pargo from the United States - after breaking through the ice near the North Pole. They had spent the previous month studying the ice for research on global warming. They staged an impromptu cricket match, but the result of the game was classified information, according to the US Department of Defense. A source close to the British team, however, leaked the news that they had won.

A lake in Beijing
The British Embassy in Beijing used to organise an annual cricket match on the frozen lake near the Summer Palace in the north of the city. "The track gave a lot of help to the batsmen," a man who witnessed the game one year told the BBC. "Come to that, the outfield gave a lot of help to the batsmen. The locals were suitably bemused."

Mount Everest

I would wager that fielding in that thin air wasn't a priority, neither running more than 1 run at a time.

A frozen lake

Fast bowlers must have struggled with getting that front foot planted, and every ball in the gap must have gone for four. no sliding on the ice to stop that ball.

In the woods in Moscow

Lots of richochets in that game, eveyone must have thought they playing golf and are stuck under the trees.

Some huge sixes could have been hit on that 5,000m above sea level plateau, I imagine!

Would probably need a fair few balls too!!

you hit a six, you fetch it, all the way down 5000 meters of slope.

Wouldn't want to risk a diving catch at the boundary edge, would you

Yeah, it seems the safest position on that pitch would be wicket keeper.

Deep mid on/off comes with included water wings!

A few friends and I have played impromptu 'matches' in many airports until boys in blue have stopped us, though the Greek police in Rhodes let us play for over an hour, standing with bemused looks on their faces and only stopping us when 'big' Dave hit the ball through a gate onto the runway.

Airport cricket! Our squad played a bit when we missed our flight to the Isle of Man in the summer. Other popular venues include hotel rooms and corridors, train stations, once on a platform and of course in the changing rooms during the rain.

Cricket played on ice is fairly popular in the northern countries such as Estonia (where they have a regular championship).

Back when I worked at Homebase during my A-levels we had a nice sized warehouse where we had the odd game of cricket. I once hit a lovely cover driven four all along the ground that came to rest at the foot of a bemused customer. Customer stopped play was the official result, as we all scattered before our manager caught wind.

Me and my mate played in my flat last year, a broken window later and I scarpered, he hasn't spoke to me since!!

My advice would be to make the most of these venues whilst you can. They may not always be there.

I received a fascinating book at Christmas - 'Britain's Lost Cricket Grounds' by Chris Arnot. Whilst the grounds featured were never as unusual or exotic as those venues highlighted in the opening article, they were all at least an occasional home for first class cricket, sometimes for many years.

Sadly, they are all now gone for ever more. Often falling victim to developers. There is a beautiful photo from the 1970s of Gordon Greenidge and Barry Richards striding out to open the batting for Hampshire at Northlands Road in Southampton. About ten years ago this homely and compact ground was bulldozed to make way for a new housing estate. Near to where Greenidge and Richards batted there is now a sign which reads: 'No Ball Games'.

Guildford, that last line is rather poignant and upsetting!

I bought Grandad Fists an interesting book for Christmas. Forget the name now, but it is effectively just a selection of photographs taken around some beautiful club cricket grounds around the country. From the Boundary's edge, I believe it may have been called.

The photographer has taken numerous shots of everything you'd expect to see on a Saturday or Sunday at many clubs around the country. Next batsman in sat reading a newspaper, a bowler in his full delivery stride, a lonely boundary fielder with hands in pockets, the wives getting the tea ready. It is so simple yet so excellent in its concept, and highlights just how magnificent the game of cricket is at every level.

Thanks, Fists.

The 'Lost Grounds' book is certainly poignant. Particularly for me, there's a very interesting feature on the old Courtaulds ground in Coventry where Warks played for about a week each season until the early 1980s. Courtaulds were a large Coventry employer with a genuine committment to the local community rather than just feathering their own directors' nests. They had a grand and immaculately kept works ground which Warks cricketers were very happy to play upon for many years in front of generally full and appreciative crowds. One of my earliest visits to watch Championship cricket was at Courtaulds (I was a Coventry schoolboy). Did Grandad Fists ever make the journey there as a youngish man?

This was all before 'Coventry's manufacturing base was devastated by recession' in the 1980s. Now, where the ground stood, behind rusting barbed wire 'are more brambles, more weeds, another gravel path to nowhere. Fifty yards along it, a discarded chair lies flat on its back as though contemplating the leaden skies above.' Fascinating and compelling reading in an almost morbid way.

The book you got Grandad Fists sounds like a beauty in many senses and inspirational.

guildford, Fists,
This is an interesting piece of Wikiage about first class cricket in Cowes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Samuel_White's_Ground

I used to do a weekly Tour of the Island and played at JS White's a couple of times shortly after its brief County career. Quite refreshing to read that it's now being put to good use for all.

Kwini, thanks for sharing. Completely agree, one of the few success stories, perhaps.

Guildford, I hadn't heard of Courtaulds before, but I'll be sure to ask him next time I see him. Such a shame that such things go to waste. I'll take a look at that book it sounds very interesting, and likewise I can't recommend From the Boundary's edge enough, if you feel like recalling the halcyon days of club cricket. I suppose the biggest compliment I can pay it is that it made me feel like I was there.

Kwini - very good to hear of the revival of the JS White Ground. Certainly never played there but walked by it a few times. When the BatGirls were much younger, we sometimes had breaks on the Isle. Less appeal for them these days, sadly.

Fists - the more you mention it, I'm sure I know of From the Boundary's Edge. I'll certainly look out for it. Liked your earlier reference to the wives getting the cricket tea ready. At my club twenty odd years ago, the husbands always used to expect and take complete credit from the other players for the teas that their wives had prepared with no help whatsoever!

The future Mrs Bat and I were engaged when she was called upon for a first cricket tea. A magnificent debut - with her mum's help, home made sandwiches, freshly baked cakes, scones and sausage rolls. By the next time, we were married - a few Greggs' sarnies plus a packet of Jaffa cakes! Downhill ever since.