Cricket

File:Cricket.jpg

The Fifth Doctor plays cricket at Cranleigh Hall. (DW: Black Orchid)

Cricket was a bat and ball game. It was played using a flat-faced bat and specially designed cricket balls on a pitch — itself situated on a larger playing field delimited by a boundary line. The offensive object of the game was for the batsmen to score as many runs as possible. The defensive object was to get the batsmen out, either by successful bowling or by running the batsmen out. (NA: Happy Endings, DW: Black Orchid)

Though primarily associated with Britain and her former colonies, (BFA: The Roof of the World) cricket became an Olympic sport by at least 2060. (BFA: Nekromanteia)

The Doctor and cricket

The Doctor appreciated the game in many of his incarnations, but it was his fifth self that seemed the keenest on the game. Not only did the Fifth Doctor regularly wear an outfit that approximated cricket whites, but he took every opportunity to play it, (DW: Black Orchid, BFA: Autumn; MA: Goth Opera) teach his companions its rules (BFA: Phantasmagoria) and attend famous matches, usually called "tests". (BFA: The Roof of the World, Nekromanteia; ST: Graham Dilley Saves the World)

The Doctor sometimes spent long periods of time playing the game. The Fifth Doctor, for instance, spent one whole summer with the local team at Cheldon Bonniface (NA: Happy Endings) and at least one full season with the Stockbridge Cricket Club. (BFA: Autumn)

The Doctor's ability to play the game varied depending upon incarnation. While his fifth self was evidently an excellent player who was an asset to every side he joined, (DW: Black Orchid, BFA: Autumn) his seventh incarnation once flatly claimed that he needed to learn the game because he was no longer the same man. (NA: Happy Endings) That being said, there was some evidence that the Doctor retained some instinctual ability to play. Despite the fact that he had used the Chameleon Arch to turn himself into a human, the Tenth Doctor, as John Smith, expertly bowled a cricket ball in a complicated way that saved the life of a baby and its mother. (DW: Human Nature)

The Doctor's companions were almost universally unimpressed with the game, and resisted the Doctor's attempts at proselytisation. Indeed, when Roz innocently asked the Seventh Doctor the question, "What's cricket?", Bernice Summerfield immediately interjected, "I think that's in the top ten of the most dangerous questions in the universe, right up there with 'Excuse me, Mr Dalek, what does that stick do?'" (NA: Happy Endings)

Notes

The First Doctor interrupted a cricket game whilst attempting to escape the Daleks and the Monk over the Time Destructor. (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan)

The Fourth Doctor drew inspiration from cricket to avoid destruction of the TARDIS when colliding with a large planetary body. (DW:The Horns of Nimon)

The Fifth Doctor intended to play cricket upon his visit to the Eye of Orion. (EDA: The Eight Doctors)

Amy Pond hit the Eleventh Doctor with a cricket bat and knocked him unconscious when he broke into her house. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)