Cricket is a very old game in Scotland - far older than football, a sport which sometimes exercises a baleful, obsessive and deleterious effect on the national psyche. Cricket goes back at least as far as the Jacobite rebellions and their sometimes vicious aftermaths. It is often felt that Scottish cricket underplays itself. It has been portrayed as in some ways an English sport, a "softies" sport, and a sport that has a very limited interest among the general population of Scotland. This is emphatically not true, and this book is in part an attempt to prove that this is a misconception. Sixty-one games (it was going to be just 60, but one turned up at the last minute!) have been chosen from the past 250 years to show that cricket does indeed influence a substantial part of the nation. The matches have been selected at all levels, from Scotland against visiting Australian teams all the way down to a Fife school fixture. These naturally reflect the life, experience and geographical whereabouts of the author. The games are quirky sometimes, (and quirkily chosen) with an emphasis on important events in the broader history of this country, notably the imminence of wars and resumptions at the end of these conflicts. But the important thing is that every single cricket contest does mean an awful lot to some people.
