The Spin | Chipboard and carpet: refugee cricket tournament brings a moment of happiness

In the current wild and fragmented landscape, there is comfort in the sport’s ability to bring hope and communityNext week in Caen, at a baseball practice ground, on a pitch made out of two pieces of chipboard with some carpet stapled on top, a cricket tournament will unroll. Nine teams of refugees, mostly based in Normandy, will fight it out over two days in a series of round-robin T5 tape-ballgames.The battles will be fierce, the bowling often fast, with added jeopardy if the ball hits the not-very-well-disguised join between the two bits of chipboard. Chris Drew, a Guardian reader who lives locally, will umpire. “You watch county cricket and there is time,” he says via video call from France. “Time is one thing that you don’t have here. It is hit, it is whack, it is run, it is bowl – it is quite something. When they whack the ball, it stays whacked. There are no defensive shots. Continue reading...

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