Cricket

A broadcast commentary on a Test Match at Lord’s provides a background against which cricket is seen as a game; a craft; and interest of the people; a piece of history. We see the craftsmen who make the ball, and the bat - that “forth straight stick” with which the batsmen defend “the other three”; then the craftsmen who play the game, from W. G. Grace in the nets to Sir Donald Bradman and Dennis Compton in the “Tests”. The history of the game is epitomised in shots of the Long Room at Lord’s, and from there the camera moves to the village green, to the London side-street where the urchins play on a bumping pitch, to South Africa and India, where in the blinding light “there is often an hour to play the last man in.” Narrated by John Arlott and Sir Ralph Richardson.