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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/28/unthinkable-cricket-metaphors-editorial

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Unthinkable? Close of play for cricket metaphors Unthinkable? Close of play for cricket metaphors
(3 months later)
Non-sporting listeners tuning in to the Today programme yesterday may have found one item a touch inscrutable. This was the one in which army major Richard Streatfeild reflected from Kabul on how cricket illuminates the Afghan political situation. "We put the Taliban into bat in 2001 and took a flurry of early wickets," the major told the nation. "Now, with half an hour to play we find ourselves some runs short, with our last recognised batsmen at the crease." Imperial cricket metaphors have a long history, even before Henry Newbolt cemented the association with his call to play up and play the game, whether on the school cricket field or in the sands of the desert sodden red. But the connection has endured. "They played the game," says the inscription at the Oval below the names of Surrey players who fell in the first world war, while in 1942, General Montgomery urged his soldiers in North Africa to "hit Rommel for six". Politics, like war, sometimes reaches for a handy cricket metaphor. Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech in 1990 complained that Margaret Thatcher's anti-Europe views left ministers feeling "their bats have been broken before the game". His colleague Peter Brooke used to express the political situation in terms of a cricket score – the Cameron-Clegg coalition would probably be around 160 for 6 in this code. All this can be quite amusing. But it really belongs in the past. After all, we now know only too well that neither war nor politics – nor even cricket itself – can be described as a game.Non-sporting listeners tuning in to the Today programme yesterday may have found one item a touch inscrutable. This was the one in which army major Richard Streatfeild reflected from Kabul on how cricket illuminates the Afghan political situation. "We put the Taliban into bat in 2001 and took a flurry of early wickets," the major told the nation. "Now, with half an hour to play we find ourselves some runs short, with our last recognised batsmen at the crease." Imperial cricket metaphors have a long history, even before Henry Newbolt cemented the association with his call to play up and play the game, whether on the school cricket field or in the sands of the desert sodden red. But the connection has endured. "They played the game," says the inscription at the Oval below the names of Surrey players who fell in the first world war, while in 1942, General Montgomery urged his soldiers in North Africa to "hit Rommel for six". Politics, like war, sometimes reaches for a handy cricket metaphor. Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech in 1990 complained that Margaret Thatcher's anti-Europe views left ministers feeling "their bats have been broken before the game". His colleague Peter Brooke used to express the political situation in terms of a cricket score – the Cameron-Clegg coalition would probably be around 160 for 6 in this code. All this can be quite amusing. But it really belongs in the past. After all, we now know only too well that neither war nor politics – nor even cricket itself – can be described as a game.
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