ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the representation in British cinema of the quintessentially British sport of cricket. It argues that, above aesthetic and economic factors, the British cricket film constitutes a viable source for social history, with on- and off-field re-presentations of the sport and its practitioners an ideological metonym for Britain’s social concerns at local, national and global levels. It demonstrates how both cricket and its cinematic depiction long perpetuated established power relations, until a recent ideological turning, which has shown the former Empire striking back.
