Introduction

At some level, that is indeed the project of this book. I want to explore the ambiguities, uncertainties, and contradictions of cricket and of law. The ideal of the uncluttered contest between bat and ball, of willow and leather, which gives to cricket its place in the mythology of England and of Empire, is in fact, and in law, as all of us who love the game in fact must recognize, far from its lived reality. What makes this interesting from a number of perspectives, including perhaps the unexpected angle of legal theory, is that cricket can, and I argue throughout does, offer us exciting lessons about the nature and possibilities inherent in ambiguity and doubt. Indeed, cricket itself, in its laws and practices embodies almost from the beginning these conflicts and contradictions. The Laws of Cricket make explicit reference to the ‘spirit of the game’, which must, at some level at least, be deemed to exceed, or to be outside of, the strict and literal text of the statute.1 In what follows I will explore in particular contexts three levels of interpretive and practical conflict-the contradictions between and among various readings of the Laws themselves; contradictions, real and apparent between the Laws and the ‘spirit of the game’; and finally, the disagreements about and around the content of our understandings of exactly what constitutes the ‘spirit of the game’.