麻豆约拍

Good morning. With the Olympics in full swing we鈥檝e reached the middle of a great Summer of Sport. But for me the summer game will always, I think, be cricket. It鈥檚 a game I love - it fascinates me.<?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

That might well surprise anyone who knows me. For I am the least athletic of people and while I did play a bit of cricket many years ago, I regularly batted at number eleven but for some reason was never asked to bowl.

Yet that lack of ability never seems to have damaged my love of the game and part of the reason was probably a man called John Arlott. He was the doyen of cricket commentators having a wonderful way with words and an ability to produce telling descriptions. I first heard him commentating well over fifty years ago聽聽 But it wasn鈥檛 the beauty of the words that struck me immediately then but the quality of his voice. It wasn鈥檛 the sort of voice you would normally have heard on the 麻豆约拍 in those days when Received Pronunciation was definitely the requirement 聽for most programmes. It was what could be called a Hampshire burr for John Arlott was a proud native of that county.

There was much more to him than cricket. He had a particular detestation of the system of apartheid then in force in South Africa. Once when he was in that country he was presented with an immigration form to sign. One of the questions asked about which race he was white,, Indian, coloured, black.. Arlott, wrote down one word 鈥淗uman鈥�

And that for me at any rate has echoes of the words of St Paul in the Acts of the Apostles; For God made of one blood all the nations of the earth.