When clergy are taught to preach, if that’s the way to describe it, we are warned against using sports analogies, because not everyone likes sports, and not everyone likes all sports, so there’s a good chance of missing the mark, so to speak. Or is that itself a sporting expression? Of course, it is very tempting to draw upon the popularity of sporting accomplishments, aware of sport being the source of countless vernacular expressions,

Having said all of this, I should confess that more than fifteen years ago, when I was living in British Columbia, amongst Canadians whose major interest in sports at the time was focused on ice hockey, curling, baseball and Canadian football, I preached a sermon referring to cricket. I suspect that it needed more explanation than I realised. Nowadays, Canadians have a broader sporting horizon as rugby union and the version of football called soccer in North America have become popular. And a couple of years ago, I stumbled upon a cricket club in the middle of Vancouver, testimony to immigration from south Asia. 

I was reminded about this for two reasons recently. First, in the Spring 2026 issue of Roqueta there was an interview with the president of the Consell Insular de Menorca, in the course of which he extolled the sporting opportunities available in Menorca, mentioning the World Snipe Championship and chess, but failing to mention cricket, despite the recent official recognition given to the sport by the Balearic authorities (mentioned in the Spring 2026 issue of Roqueta). I wondered whether some balancing redress might be in order! 

Secondly, and more sadly, Graham Byfield died at the end of March, at the age of 93. A resident of Menorca for 36 years, he combined a career as a graphic designer and a gift for the art of drawing and painting with a consummate skill as a cricketing wicket keeper. He was a latter-day ‘renaissance man.’ He was also a wonderful story-teller. While confined to hospital a couple of years ago, I found myself drawn into prolonged conversations about his far-reaching, fascinating life - and at the end of several weeks, we had still only reached 1986! 

One thing about playing cricket is that anyone who pursues it as a sport has to subscribe to a code of conduct that keeps the game respectable. A little man from Yorkshire died six years ago - just before the pandemic. I knew him from the Menorca Cricket Club as a perennial umpire, until he removed himself with his wife back to the UK. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, and sometimes he was referred to as ‘the grumpy umpy.’ But the thing about cricket is that almost all the time it’s played in a spirit of mutual trust and respectful sportsmanship. Tony, the little umpire, was, as far as I can tell, regarded with affection and respect, because he turned up and did what he was supposed to do, he knew the rules, and he didn’t beat about the bush. ‘That were rubbish,’ he was heard to say, more than once (and not just about my bowling!). The relationships that he established were based upon realism and trust, and a clear understanding that no one is perfect, not even cricket umpires from Yorkshire, but there are rules and principles, and they help to establish a realistic and honest structure for our relationships.

Another aspect of the sport, which is what I was attempting to explain to my Canadian congregation all those years ago, is that it requires the focus of attention when nothing much seems to be happening. In a game of cricket, there are fielders, poised around the bat, aware that the ball may come their way, but not knowing exactly how and when. They have to be ready to catch or at least stop the ball when – or if – it comes their way. The best cricketers, like Graham Byfield, have almost instinctive reactions. But they have to pay attention, and they have to know what to do when their moment arrives. Interestingly, Graham Byfield’s ‘fast hands’ were replicated in the way in which he caught whatever life threw at him and reacted according to the spirit if not the letter of what he felt were the rules of life. 

This was my point in associating cricket with religion: that life can have seemingly unpredictable twists and turns, which may be part of a grander plan than we can appreciate or understand fully. In Christian terms, God may well be planning or doing a new thing, and we have to be ready for it, although in many cases, all we can do is wait in some sort of readiness – like the fielders, waiting to catch a ball that may or may not come their way. If we pay attention to what is happening in our lives, whether it be our closest interpersonal relationships, or in the larger landscape of life, we will be better equipped to deal with it. And it helps to have a moral and ethical code by which to live - the equivalent of the combination of the rules of cricket and the unwritten spirit of them. This is actually what Christian faith is about: not blindly following a set of rigid rules, but discerning the spirit of loving our neighbours as ourselves - all of our neighbours, not just the ones we choose! 

Also, in the case of team sports, the members of the team have to work together towards a common goal, respecting one another’s gifts and honestly recognising weaknesses. The best teams are honest with one another about what they can and cannot do as individuals. Those relationships are the best: the ones that allow us to be mortals with feet of clay, not artificial saints, not people stuck on a pedestal, doomed to be consumed by the vultures of social media when the inevitable fall from grace occurs, but fallible human beings who accept one another’s fallibility with respect and dignity, because that’s the only way we can really expect to be treated with dignity and respect ourselves. 

We are communal beings, and so life is more often than not like a team sport. We walk through this life together, sometimes looking out from the mountain tops and at other times searching for one another’s support in the darkness of the valleys where life leads us. We don’t always get it right. We don’t always get along. Sometimes we argue about the wrong things. Sometimes we agree on the right things. But in the end it’s reassuring to know that it’s the relationships that make us better, our hearts fuller, and our faith stronger. 

After all, if we are going to step up to the plate, we have to be willing to get the ball rolling, to throw ourselves into the ruck, as Jesus did, and play with a straight bat, or we will find ourselves taking it on the chin and going for an early bath, which would be sad, because life is a marathon, not a sprint.