Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion

Timothy Abraham and James Coyne Constable £20

Evita burned down our pavilion’ might seem an unlikely claim, even in a sport famous for its factual and statistical curios, but Latin America merica is no ordinary region.

Cricket nuts Timothy hy Abraham and James s Coyne have travelled d throughout it to chronicle the history of the summer game there. From the beaches of Rio to Chile’s Atacama Desert, they seek out lost grounds and descendants of once- famous players. They ey even play a few games mes themselves.

Football may be king ng in Latin America but cricket ricket has been played there for 150 years. When England and Australia played their inaugural Test match in 1877, Uruguay and Argentina had already been contesting their own derby for a decade. The game was introduced by British engineers and entrepreneurs and eventually embraced by the local population (as witnessed by one ancient scorecard that records ‘Jesus bowled Heaven 1’). In Colombia, the authors uncover the wicket-keeping exploits of the illegitimate son of drug lord Pablo Escobar (he would tie lengths of thread to the bails and p pull them off as the ball whistle whistled past the stumps). In Chile they hear tales of the inf infamous General Pino Pinochet once padding up for a match (both hi his grandsons were u useful cricketers). F For games between Brazil and Peru the protagonists play p not for a tiny u urn, but for a T Thermos flask. This is a highly en entertaining read, deft deftly melding social histo history with sporting memoi memoir and travelogue. Oh and y yes, in 1947 Eva Peron (inset) (inset), the First Lady of A Argentina, i ordered d d the destruction of the Buenos Aires Cricket Club pavilion after the club refused to hand over its premises to her social welfare fund.