England Cricket Quotes & Sayings

So I'm over there in England, you know, trying to get news about the [L.A.] riots ... and all these Brit people are trying to sympathize with me ... 'Oh Bill, crime is horrible. Bill, if it's any consolation crime is horrible here, too.' ... Shutup. This is Hobbitown and I am Bilbo Hicks, Okay? This is a land of fairies and elves. You do not have crime like we have crime, but I appreciate you trying to be, you know, Diplomatic. You gotta see English crime. It's hilarious, you don't know if you're reading the front page or the comic section over there. I swear to God. I read an article - front page of the paper - one day, in England: 'Yesterday, some Hooligans knocked over a dustbin in Shafsbry.' Wooooo ... 'The hooligans are loose! The hooligans are loose! What if they become roughians? I would hate to be a dustbin in Shafsbry tonight. — Bill Hicks

England are playing fantastic cricket at the moment, they have a great team and I know all the Aussies are looking forward to getting over there. We'll be doing everything in our power to get over there and win every game if possible. — Michael Clarke

England and America should scrap cricket and baseball and come up with a new game that they both can play. Like baseball, for example. — Robert Benchley

Don Bradman will bat no more against England, and two contrary feelings dispute within us: relief, that our bowlers will no longer be oppressed by this phenomenon; regret, that a miracle has been removed from among us. So must ancient Italy have felt when she heard of the death of Hannibal. — R.C. Robertson-Glasgow

Pray God that no professional will ever captain England. — Martin Hawke

I used to hate England because they ruled my country but I am happy they gave us the game of cricket, which they can't play very well, and the English language, which I can't speak very well, — Kapil Dev

The only good thing about that decision, Gatt, is that I'll get tea before you. — Graham Gooch

I think we are going to see exciting cricket all the way. We are watching the two best teams in the world-and I think England will eventually go on to pip Australia by a single Test. — Ian Botham

Her favourite summer memories were not of events themselves, of picnics, sea bathing, tennis afternoons and cricket matches, but of watching Hugh and Daniel enjoying them and locking into memory the delight in their faces and their open laughter. — Helen Simonson

The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery hidden by the curve of the earth's surface. Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered in wild flowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse and meditate, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows, the green bosoms of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness of outer London, the barges on the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policemen - all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs. — George Orwell

Yardy doing a good job out there - 1-14 off his five overs so far - but Bangla are letting this drift. The bowling is there to attack, but they're as passive as sleeping sloths at the mo. — Tom Fordyce

Pakistan would be confident after their series win over England. The series will be a very close and good contest and if all the players play to their potential we're in for some wonderful cricket. — Greg Chappell

Summer in England THOSE WORDS ARE SUPPOSED TO CONJURE UP HALCYON SUNNY afternoons; the smell of new-mown hay, little old ladies on bicycles pedaling past the village green on their way to the church jumble sale, the vicar's tea party, the crunching sound of a fast-bowled cricket ball fracturing the batsman's skull, and so on. — Charles Stross

It seems perfectly reasonable to give the greatest weight to the longest series. South Africa were only offered a five-Test series in Australia and England when they were considered worthy opponents and when the authorities considered that sufficient crowds would allow such a series to be a viable financial option. This link between the duration of a Test series and the money it is likely to generate is a constant throughout the history of the game and has been made more complex over the last three decades by the introduction of the various one-day formats. The constant also remains that a five-Test series (six being a thing of the past) is the ultimate examination of the relative strength of two teams and the current fashion for a quick two-match 'shoot-out' can only harm the standing of Test cricket whatever the short-term financial rewards. — Patrick Ferriday

I feel I have had a very interesting life, but I am rather hoping there is still more to come. I still haven't captained the England cricket team, or sung at Carnegie Hall! — Jeffrey Archer

Rob Green needed to get the long barrier out, didn't he? — James Anderson

Speaking of Vaughan, his claim in the Daily Telegraph last week that the story of a senior county pro being offered money to fix domestic matches was 'the tip of the iceberg' did not go down well with one former England captain contacted by the Top Spin. 'I played the game for almost 20 years,' he seethed, 'and I don't know a single player who has been offered money, either for information or to fix a game. To say it's the tip of the iceberg is absolute rubbish.'
The fact that the player in question had just registered a mediocre Stableford score of 20 playing off a handicap of 14 had nothing to do, I was assured, with his foul mood. — Lawrence Booth

I was wondering about the origin of the word hat trick. Where does it come from? Cricket doesn't have much to do with hats, does it?' 'I think it was at Sheffield's Hyde Park ground in 1858. An All-England cricket team was engaged in a cricket match against the Hallam XI. During the match, H.H. Stephenson of the All-England XI took three wickets in three balls. As was customary at the time for rewarding outstanding sporting feats, a collection was made. The proceeds were used to buy a white hat, which was duly presented to the bowler.' 'And was Stephenson grateful?' 'History is, I fear, silent on this important subject, Geordie. But Mr Ali's hat trick certainly made our own little contribution to cricketing statistics.' 'Although — James Runcie

The last positive thing England did for cricket was to invent it. — Ian Chappell

My father died in 1930, but if you told him or anybody almost in that time that you'd be able to sit back in England and watch a cricket game in Australia, they'd have you put in the loony bin. — Desmond Llewelyn

We're not going to get carried away. Well, we are going to for the next couple of days! — Paul Collingwood

I love England and I love cricket. — Kevin Pietersen

English civilization rests largely upon tea and cricket, with mighty spurts of enjoyment on Derby Day, and at Newmarket. — Agnes Repplier

He has played some outstanding innings in the past, and I've got no [sic] confidence whatsoever that he'll come back and play very well in the near future. — Andrew Strauss

I left home and tried to live the life of a hermit, but I was still fighting myself. I went to England and worked as a chainman on the road. It was better therapy than the shrinks. Building a two-mile road gave me internal peace. — Brian Strang

In an area so reliant on opinion there is also the matter of received opinion to consider. The old turkey of the innate beauty of left handers is probably a result of the rarer days for 'cack-handers' when Frank Woolley bestrode the shires on both sides of World War I. After a long gap, his mantle was languidly accepted in England by David Gower. But for every Woolley there was a Mead and for every Gower a Trescothick as if to balance the equation and bury the turkey. — Patrick Ferriday

The captains of England and Australia can barely exchange pleasantries these days without a body-language expert immediately declaiming on the angle of their handshakes. — Lawrence Booth

During my years of professional cricket in England, I realised that although the Australians were talented players, tactically they were a bit naive when compared to those who played full-time on the English circuit. You might find this arrogant, but that was the reality then. — Glenn Turner

You wouldn't see those sorts of decisions given in village cricket, let alone Test cricket. The England players have my sympathy. — Ian Botham

Test Cricket is not a light-hearted business, especially that between England and Australia. — Donald Bradman

There's a lot of good things about England, but I don't want to tell you too many of them. — Michael Clarke

We are such sticklers for tradition in insisting on an amateur captain, regardless of the question of whether he can pull his weight as a player. The time is coming when we will have to change our views [...] when there will be no amateurs of sufficient ability to put into an England side. — John Berry Hobbs

Equally, though, there are guys who play England Under 19 who don't even play First Class cricket. It is a watershed in the careers in many ways. — Andy Pick

The other advantage England have got when Phil Tufnell is bowling is that he isn't fielding — Ian Chappell

For a spinner growing up in England, it is challenging to become an off-spinner. The line and length needs to be altered on each of the four days of county cricket or five days of Test matches. The pitches in England don't have a set pattern. It changes with each day, and accordingly, the length varies. — Harbhajan Singh

The Aussies have spent so much time basking in the glory of the last generation that they have forgotten to plan for this one. It's just like the West Indies again; once their great names from the 1970s and 80s retired, the whole thing fell apart.

The way things are going, the next Ashes series cannot come too quickly for England. What a shame that we have to wait until 2013 to play this lot again. — Geoffrey Boycott