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And God Created Cricket: An Irreverent History of the English Game and How Other People (like Australians) Got Annoyingly Good at it
Simon Hughes has written an entertaining and irreverent analysis of the history of cricket, taking us beyond the sporting myths of the game to some of its lesser known, more colourful stories and to the heart of what it really means to be English.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Hardcover edition.
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 5, 2009
23 people are currently reading
189 people want to read
About the author
Simon Hughes
56 books29 followersSimon Peter Hughes is an English cricketer and journalist. He is the son of the actor Peter Hughes, and the brother of historian Bettany Hughes.
Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
December 21, 2018
A humorous guided tour through cricket over the centuries, that’s what this book is. I came to know a lot about my favourite sport. Personally, the development of the technical aspects of the game; how a wicket fence where you had to wedge your bat into the gap to score a run became the modern wicket for instance, were most interesting. Motivates me to read other books by the author and The Cricketer magazine, of which he is the editor. Finally, it would be unfair if I didn’t touch upon the humour running parallel to the narrative. It works, except maybe for the Len Hutton and Hitler joke. Thats just one example so yes it works and makes this brief history of cricket the hugely enjoyable read that it is. My personal favourite? “Surely you are not going Doctor, there is one stump still standing”-from a fast bowler to a legendary batsman. Time well spent
August 3, 2016
If you are looking for the definitive book on how cricket developed into the game we know today, then you need to read "A Social History of English Cricket" by Derek Birley. John Major's "More Than a Game" is another good book; although he does take a few political digs at his opponents that have nothing to do with cricket. If you just want to know just enough about cricket so you do not look stupid in the pub when there is a Test Match on the TV - and enjoy some serious belly laughs - then "The Bluffer's Guide to Cricket" is a very good - and very short - read and the book for you.
In this book, Simon Hughes - known to many as the analyst on Channel 5's cricket commentary team - finds the common ground between a serious study of the origins and development of cricket and a very funny and entertaining book. To be fair this is actually more the serious study of the history of cricket that I'm sure Hughes intended, with a few jokes thrown in. This is actually almost as thorough in the details as John Major's work and would make an ideal starting point before reading Major's book and finally reading Birley's tome.
To any cricket fans out there I would say this is pretty much a must-read and thoroughly enjoyably. Hughes writes in a style that is easy to follow: as his autobiographical book "A Lot of Hard Yakka" which I would also recommend demonstrates. I will now ensure that my library of cricket books is not missing anything written by Simon Hughes.
In this book, Simon Hughes - known to many as the analyst on Channel 5's cricket commentary team - finds the common ground between a serious study of the origins and development of cricket and a very funny and entertaining book. To be fair this is actually more the serious study of the history of cricket that I'm sure Hughes intended, with a few jokes thrown in. This is actually almost as thorough in the details as John Major's work and would make an ideal starting point before reading Major's book and finally reading Birley's tome.
To any cricket fans out there I would say this is pretty much a must-read and thoroughly enjoyably. Hughes writes in a style that is easy to follow: as his autobiographical book "A Lot of Hard Yakka" which I would also recommend demonstrates. I will now ensure that my library of cricket books is not missing anything written by Simon Hughes.
February 1, 2020
Excellent read for cricket fans. Love the funny take throughout the book. Personal bias, but I believe that classic Indian cricket legends stories were missing and the ones included have a negative connotation to it. All in all a good read with a push to watch some retro videos of the incidents recalled in the book.
July 5, 2025
If you are looking for the definitive book on how cricket developed into the game we know today, then you need to read "A Social History of English Cricket" by Derek Birley. John Major's "More Than a Game" is another good book; although he does take a few political digs at his opponents that have nothing to do with cricket. If you just want to know just enough about cricket so you do not look stupid in the pub when there is a Test Match on the TV - and enjoy some serious belly laughs - then "The Bluffer's Guide to Cricket" is a very good - and very short - read and the book for you.
In this book, Simon Hughes - known to many as the analyst on Channel 5's cricket commentary team - finds the common ground between a serious study of the origins and development of cricket and a very funny and entertaining book. To be fair this is actually more the serious study of the history of cricket that I'm sure Hughes intended, with a few jokes thrown in. This is actually almost as thorough in the details as John Major's work and would make an ideal starting point before reading Major's book and finally reading Birley's tome.
To any cricket fans out there I would say this is pretty much a must-read and thoroughly enjoyably. Hughes writes in a style that is easy to follow: as his autobiographical book "A Lot of Hard Yakka" which I would also recommend demonstrates. I will now ensure that my library of cricket books is not missing anything written by Simon Hughes.
In this book, Simon Hughes - known to many as the analyst on Channel 5's cricket commentary team - finds the common ground between a serious study of the origins and development of cricket and a very funny and entertaining book. To be fair this is actually more the serious study of the history of cricket that I'm sure Hughes intended, with a few jokes thrown in. This is actually almost as thorough in the details as John Major's work and would make an ideal starting point before reading Major's book and finally reading Birley's tome.
To any cricket fans out there I would say this is pretty much a must-read and thoroughly enjoyably. Hughes writes in a style that is easy to follow: as his autobiographical book "A Lot of Hard Yakka" which I would also recommend demonstrates. I will now ensure that my library of cricket books is not missing anything written by Simon Hughes.
October 11, 2020
Awesome history of Cricket- particularly the initial days- with typical English commentary to boot. packed full of facts and anecdotes, but written purely from an English perspective- with the author focusing too much on critquing county-based system around which English cricket is organised and which he sees as a relic of aristocratic patronage. Yet he never discusses in any great detail what might replace the current system and argues rather poorly in his alternative of city-based teams would amount to any more than a rebranding of Warwickshire as Birmingham, Yorkshire as Leeds or Middlesex and Surrey as North and South London.
January 13, 2023
I'd have given it 4 stars for content, but have deducted 1 star for the embarrassingly painful attempts at laddish humour and banter which appear in the first half of the book, and which sound contrived and artificial. The author modifies this somewhat in the later stages when he's talking about events in his own lifetime, but not by enough to reclaim the star, I'm afraid. He has some interesting thoughts on the place of county cricket in England and the future of the game but it would have been a better book if he'd restricted himself to discussing modern cricket.
January 14, 2019
Interesting, but a bit too flippant for my taste.
August 29, 2019
A gripping history of the greatest game to grace to planet. Simon Hughes’ humorous writing style is very entertaining and makes for a fantastic read.
August 3, 2025
Good history and easy to read but turns from history of cricket into history of England cricket about 2/3 of the way int
January 2, 2026
quite old boys-y but some interesting bits
July 25, 2021
And God Created Cricket , by former player turned TV analyst Simon Hughes, is a light-hearted account of the history of cricket in Britain and around the world. Starting with the earliest origins of the game in the 16th century, Hughes begins by explaining how the sport we and know and love today came to be formed, and the role it occupied in British life. From here we move onto the "golden age" of cricket (the period between 1890 and 1914, so called because of both the sporting prowess and the fair-minded spirit of the players), including profiles of early cricketing heroes like WG Grace, CB Fry, and Ranji. We continue past the second World War and learn about the growth of cricket as a truly global phenomenon (in Commonwealth countries, at least), and the development of the shorter forms of the game that are now some of the most popular. Finally, we conclude with a review of the sport as it is when the book was written (2009), and how it might develop in the future.
Any historical account has the potential to become a little dry, and so Hughes attempts to keep the reader entertained with a comical writing style and the tendency to insert jokes wherever possible. Whilst this does serve the purpose of keeping things light, I did find this a little overbearing at times, particularly in the earlier sections of the book. The tone switches in later sections as the subject moves towards that which Hughes has personal experience with, leading him to write in a less humorous but more passionate way about the episodes of recent cricketing history which resonated with him (particularly polemics against the county game, with which he seems to have a bit of an issue). Whilst this was also entertaining in its own way, it felt at times more like a collection of opinion piece articles than a simple history of the game in which only the most important events are highlighted.
Those small criticisms notwithstanding, this was nonetheless an enjoyable combination of history and humour, which will no doubt teach the reader a lot about the sport without boring them to death. 6/10
Any historical account has the potential to become a little dry, and so Hughes attempts to keep the reader entertained with a comical writing style and the tendency to insert jokes wherever possible. Whilst this does serve the purpose of keeping things light, I did find this a little overbearing at times, particularly in the earlier sections of the book. The tone switches in later sections as the subject moves towards that which Hughes has personal experience with, leading him to write in a less humorous but more passionate way about the episodes of recent cricketing history which resonated with him (particularly polemics against the county game, with which he seems to have a bit of an issue). Whilst this was also entertaining in its own way, it felt at times more like a collection of opinion piece articles than a simple history of the game in which only the most important events are highlighted.
Those small criticisms notwithstanding, this was nonetheless an enjoyable combination of history and humour, which will no doubt teach the reader a lot about the sport without boring them to death. 6/10
April 15, 2016
I eventually enjoyed this book very much. I have a lot of respect for Simon Hughes's knowledge of the game and have enjoyed his previous books. He can write very well, and when he does he is interesting, insightful and amusing - as he is pretty consistently in the latter two thirds of this book
The problem came for me in the first hundred or so pages which are liberally sprinkled (in fact I would say seriously infested) with silliness which isn't nearly as funny as it thinks it is. Here's a random sample of an interesting little nugget, ruined for me by the subsequent "joke" complete with exclamation mark: "C. B. Fry also developed a fascination with the Nazis and once spent an hour chatting to Hitler, trying, and failing, to persuade him to form a cricket team. He spent so long explaining the lbw law it drove Germany into invading Poland. The Second World War was all C. B. Fry's fault!" There's a limit to how much of this I can take, but there was enough good stuff to keep me going - shortly after this, for example, there are several really fine, insightful and flippancy-free paragraphs on Frank Woolley, his possible similarity to David Gower and what it was like bowling to Gower.
Fortunately, the tom-foolery peters out as Hughes begins to talk about things he really knows and cares about (from about the 1920s onward) and the final 200 pages or so are full of insight, analysis and really interesting and amusing anecdotes. His accounts of the Bodyline and D'Oliviera affairs are simply excellent, for example, and he draws brilliant portraits of some of the greats of the game.
Overall, a very good book and well worth reading for anyone interested in cricket - just be prepared to negotiate a wayward opening spell.
The problem came for me in the first hundred or so pages which are liberally sprinkled (in fact I would say seriously infested) with silliness which isn't nearly as funny as it thinks it is. Here's a random sample of an interesting little nugget, ruined for me by the subsequent "joke" complete with exclamation mark: "C. B. Fry also developed a fascination with the Nazis and once spent an hour chatting to Hitler, trying, and failing, to persuade him to form a cricket team. He spent so long explaining the lbw law it drove Germany into invading Poland. The Second World War was all C. B. Fry's fault!" There's a limit to how much of this I can take, but there was enough good stuff to keep me going - shortly after this, for example, there are several really fine, insightful and flippancy-free paragraphs on Frank Woolley, his possible similarity to David Gower and what it was like bowling to Gower.
Fortunately, the tom-foolery peters out as Hughes begins to talk about things he really knows and cares about (from about the 1920s onward) and the final 200 pages or so are full of insight, analysis and really interesting and amusing anecdotes. His accounts of the Bodyline and D'Oliviera affairs are simply excellent, for example, and he draws brilliant portraits of some of the greats of the game.
Overall, a very good book and well worth reading for anyone interested in cricket - just be prepared to negotiate a wayward opening spell.
February 14, 2011
This was the second Kindle book I purchased, the Kindle store currently being very light on cricket books. However I wasn't disappointed.
Simon takes us through a history of cricket in an educating and enjoyable way. I only have two complaints (and these are what cost the star) is that the book starts and every anecdote is finished with a one line gag and usually related to soccer - either this stopped a couple of chapters in or it ceased to annoy me! The other is that (as I guess is to be expected) there feels a lot of pages in a history book devoted to the last 10 years, and especially the 2005, '07 an '09 Ashes series.
Other than that defiantly a book I look forward to dipping into and out of again. Good stuff
Simon takes us through a history of cricket in an educating and enjoyable way. I only have two complaints (and these are what cost the star) is that the book starts and every anecdote is finished with a one line gag and usually related to soccer - either this stopped a couple of chapters in or it ceased to annoy me! The other is that (as I guess is to be expected) there feels a lot of pages in a history book devoted to the last 10 years, and especially the 2005, '07 an '09 Ashes series.
Other than that defiantly a book I look forward to dipping into and out of again. Good stuff
March 25, 2011
Another engaging cricketing read from Simon Hughes, who always manages to spin interesting cricketing tales that are sprinkled with his dry wit.
In this book, he rattles through 700 years of the history of cricket, covering the invention of the game, how and where it spread, introducing us to some of the stand out legendary characters, reviewing some of the highs and lows of the sport, never letting you feel like he's gone on too long, but equally never making you feel he is being too sparse with detail.
If you don't like cricket, or don't even know what cricket is, it's probably not the book for you. If you do, read it.
In this book, he rattles through 700 years of the history of cricket, covering the invention of the game, how and where it spread, introducing us to some of the stand out legendary characters, reviewing some of the highs and lows of the sport, never letting you feel like he's gone on too long, but equally never making you feel he is being too sparse with detail.
If you don't like cricket, or don't even know what cricket is, it's probably not the book for you. If you do, read it.
February 18, 2012
This is a humourous history of cricket from right back in its early beginnings. It sounds a little like a cricket version of Bill Bryson, and is very worth a read for any cricket fan. Even a die-hard fan will likely be surprised at some of the information in there. For me, finding out the origins of such terms as stumps, wicket, etc. was very interesting. It contains a wonderful cast of cricket characters, and while at times Hughes's humour feels a little forced overall it was a very enjoyable read.
December 7, 2010
A lovely meander through this history of cricket. Simon Hughes stops off at his favourite as well as the key moments in English cricket history. I managed to get this finished just before the 2010/11 Ashes series began and it certainly got me even more in the mood
April 21, 2012
A gloriously readable, informative, witty--and laugh-out-loud-funny in places--history of the wonderful game of cricket. It should be required reading for all fans of the gentleman's game and for all those with any interest in it whatsoever! Marvellous!
September 7, 2012
Hughes is an innovator of the sport and his book shows he is greeted by the same old rhetoric: the game isn’t what it used to be, the fact is it isn’t, but cricket at the pace of the New Zealand test batting line-up moves at a slow pace with the times.
April 15, 2021
A reasonably comprehensive history of cricket littered with terrible jokes that made this a slog (or I suppose, to use a more apt phrasing, the equivalent of repeatedly bowling the same ball outside off stump in the knowledge that it will get the wicket eventually) to get through.
March 9, 2012
Excellent book about the history of cricket, and that's from someone who can take it or leave it.
March 4, 2013
"Absolootly great... my Moom could have love this book." A very nice insight into the history of cricket and hw it has developed into what we see now. A must read for all cricket fans.
August 28, 2015
Almost spoilt by too many (ill advised) comedy afterthoughts
October 29, 2012
A modertately funny general history of the old game.
February 24, 2018
This needs an editor to remove every single one of the 'jokes'. The actual history moves along well, but stupid remarks about slavery just leave a sour taste. Would not recommend
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews