Catching The Light

Martin Chandler | 8:32am BST 10 May 2026

Published: 2026
Pages: 295
Author: Beard, Timothy, Hogg, Nicholas and Thacker, Matt
Publisher: Fairfield Books
Rating: 3 stars

Cricket writing started with poetry. Long before there were narrative accounts of the lives of cricketers and cricket matches there was James Love’s Cricket: an Heroic Poem, first published in 1744. Cricket collectors and bibliophiles will also have heard of Surrey Triumphant or the Kentish-Men’s defeat by Rev John Duncombe and J Bew’s The Noble Cricketers and others that followed that, all published well before 1800.

The first editions of those poems are now amongst the most prized items of cricket literature there are, fetching prices that if they are not what they were a couple of decades ago are still well measured in thousands of pounds rather than hundreds. But the poems themselves are not difficult to acquire. They have all been republished, pored over by historians and are now accompanied by detailed commentaries from those researchers.

The thoughts of those responsible for the later editions of these early poems are not without interest, but I have to confess to never having been enthused by the poems themselves. Nor have I ever been enamoured greatly of poetry in general, but I did spend some time last year with one of the men responsible for putting together this anthology, and his enthusiasm for the project was obvious.

What you get with Catching the Light is well over a hundred poems. Most of them have appeared in print before, but a number were written specially for this collection. They are gathered together thematically in nine sections, The Game, The Players, Childhood, Close of Play, Dreams, Languages, Places, Politics and, naturally bringing up the rear, Sundries.

There are a handful of poems that were written in the nineteenth century, and a few from the early part of the twentieth century. But in the main the contents of Catching the Light are nothing if not contemporary. A few of the names of the poets were familiar to me, Norman Gale, John Arlott, Alan Ross, GD Martineau and Irving Rosenwater from times gone by although, certainly in the case of the latter four, it has only been their prose that I have enjoyed.

Of the more modern poets the only one I am familiar with is the Guyanese born John Agard, whose work makes four appearances in Catching the Light. I have reviewed a collection of Agard’s work before, and struggled with that until I was given the sage advice that poetry is often bettered listened to than read and, listening to Agard reciting his work did indeed bring it to life.

But unfortunately, unlike with Agard, there is no easy way I could discern of finding similar material here, and there is no continuing commentary from the ‘selectors’ to guide the inexperienced. That said there is an introduction, and a valuable comment in there, sometimes a single or image has stood out so strongly that we couldn’t ignore it. It is an obvious and almost trite observation, but nonetheless made an important point that had not previously occurred to me.

And I have also learnt that reading poetry does need practice. A good example of that is a poem entitled Leg-Break by Tim Youngs. It is only nine words, displayed in what I will describe as an unusual pattern. I cannot deny that my initial thought was along the lines of how something so awful could be considered appropriate to include in such an anthology. In fact so appalled was I that I couldn’t help but dwell on the subject, and as I did so my darkness was lightened, and I suddenly saw the point.

Writing as someone who is no great fan of poetry my initial impressions of this one were not particularly positive, but I persevered and did get the hang of it in the end. I wouldn’t say I am a convert yet but, as that introduction says, there are some wonderful lines in some of these poems, and certainly one as a complete piece of work that did open my eyes and is now right up there with my favourite pieces of cricket writing, Late Gower by the legend that is the long time Observer cricket correspondent, Alan Ross.

The decision to publish this one was, in my opinion anyway, a brave one. I can’t see too many lovers of cricket literature seeking it out for the simple reason that, like me, poetry is not really their thing. On the other hand any poetry lover who is not enamoured of our great game is unlikely to be queueing up to purchase either. That said I do hope there is enough of a cross over for Catching The Light to be a success as I can certainly see that to any cricket lover who also appreciates poetry or poetry lover who enjoys cricket, it will prove a source of great pleasure.