Anyone for cricket?ON July 8th England plays the first Test of a new Ashes series against Australia—in Cardiff. The Welsh capital often hosts England matches, but that is as close as Wales gets to international cricket. It is the only nation in the British Isles not to have a recognised national team (even the Isle of Man and Guernsey do), and the best Welsh cricketers, such as the Ashes-winning fast bowler Simon Jones, therefore play for England.
If Matthew Ford gets his way, however, that could change. The 31-year-old from Montgomeryshire leads the campaign to create a Welsh national team. He petitioned the country’s National Assembly two years ago, and in its last general election manifesto Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, backed the idea. Bethan Jenkins, Plaid Cymru’s spokeswoman for sport, argues that Wales could follow the leads of Scotland, which severed its links with the England team in 1992 and Ireland, which joined the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 1993 and has since beaten several front-rank teams, including the West Indies earlier this year. Indeed, Ireland (with a population of 6.4m)...Continue reading
via Brian Rushton, The bat and the daffodil
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