In 2008, little-known Irish writer Joseph O'Neill published Netherland, a novel inspired by his experiences playing cricket in New York City. It became one of the literary sensations of the year.
In Netherland's opening pages, Joseph O'Neill paints a perfect portrait of club cricket in the United States Of America. He also diagnoses the great technical flaw that holds back the American game. Through his Dutch narrator, Hans, he claims Americans play 'bush cricket'.
"A rank outfield largely undermines the art of batting," he writes. Consequently the batsmen is forced to smash the ball into the air and batting is turned into a gamble." A believer in batting's graceful elegancies, O'Neill writesfrom experience. "When I came to the United States I found they were playing a kind of Twenty20 before it had even been invented," he recalls. "The alienation Hans feels from the American version of cricket was something I experienced as well."
O'Neill jokes he's, "an Associates cricket kind of guy." Though you'd never guess from his pristine English accent, he was born in Cork, then grew up in the Netherlands, and learnt his cricket at the same time as attending an international school in The Hague. He played for Dutch international youth teams up to under-19 level, and, if he'd not gone to study law at Cambridge, would probably have been part of the strong Dutch team that reached the 1996 World Cup. His former team-mates include Andre Van Troost and Roland Lefebvre. "Just in my neighbourhood we had five guys who went on to play for Holland," he recalls of a golden age in Dutch cricket.
"It was a very small game, but played very seriously by the clubs, so you only needed about 20 or 30 clubs to produce a very handy national team."
For followers of Associate cricket, O'Neill's third book, Netherland is a remarkable proposition. It's many things, including a novel about living in Manhattan after 9/11, and a novel about a man whose marriage has fallen apart as a result of the tragedy. Mostly, however, Netherland is a book about a Dutchmen playing club cricket in New York City who, as he rediscovers the game he played as a child, finds the courage to put his life back together. It's by no means autobiographical, but is rooted in the writer's own experience. New York cricket – played mostly by immigrants and the occasional first-class player flown in the from the Caribbean – is a world O'Neill is very familiar with.
"I never think autobiographically when I'm writing, but I am thinking about what I know," he explains. "I have access to a world most people don't have access to. It's a world I feel very comfortable in." Like Hans, O'Neill is an active member of Staten Island Cricket Club. In the New York leagues, he's faced former West Indies opening bowler Corey Collymore and West Indies ODI wicket-keeper Carlton Baugh.
The second major character in Netherland is Chuck Ramkissoon, a Trinidadian immigrant who plans to build a cricket stadium in Brooklyn, and sell cricket to the American masses. Thanks to Chuck, Hans visits immigrant communities miles from his home in Midtown Manhattan. Like cricket, these communities are largely invisible to mainstream American society. "Cricket is an obvious frontier of American vision and comprehension," says O'Neill.
"One of the questions asked in the book is, 'how can the United States understand the world if it can't understand cricket?'"
Chuck makes a daring proposition. He believes mainstream US society must welcome cricket if it is to truly welcome the Caribbean and South Asian immigrants that have recently arrived on its soil. Through one of the book's final twists, O'Neill suggests cricket shouldn't be taken quite so seriously. But institutions such as the New York City Parks & Recreation Department certainly aren't ready to accept this 'immigrant' sport. As detailed in Netherland, the Parks Department rarely grants cricket clubs prime fields, forcing them to play on the rank 'bush' grounds Hans describes so vividly.
Nevertheless, O'Neill believes change may be nigh. "I think the reception my book has had suggests people here are hungry for new stories, not because they're interested in cricket itself, but because it's new," he says. "I think the Bush years have represented the idea you can somehow fossilise American culture and build a wall around it. We've seen how that's misguided on every level."
Cricket is the USA is run notoriously badly, and O'Neill has witnessed the institutional flaws first hand. "US cricket is horribly splintered from an administrative point of view," he explains. "If you're a great young player in Chicago, how are you going to play for the United States? You don't have the connections and nobody knows who you are." Representing the USA is not a top priority for New York's top cricketers.
"We tried to get our young players to go to the trials, but they couldn't really be bothered," laments O'Neill. It's easy to see why the USA has failed to produce a consistently competitive team at Associate level. Recently, the side has mostly consisted of former first-class players who have retired from playing in the West Indies. O'Neill has faced most of them in the New York leagues. "I'm 44, and they're a bit like me, only a bit better," he explains. "Most of them are old. They're good batsmen with good eyes and bowl a bit of part-time off spin, but they're all about 15 years past their prime, so it's hard even for them to take themselves seriously."
New York cricket is far removed from the civil, structured game most of us know and love. Now, however, people are coming to understand its potential.
In Netherland, O'Neill has captured the modern American cricketing experience perfectly. It's an edgier game. For the thousands of immigrants who play on forgotten fields each weekend, it's about holding on to one indentity, while establishing another in a new country. Despite its flaws, it's a world O'Neill has fallen in love with. "Now I find there's something boring now about that cups of tea approach to cricket," he says."I like playing fired up Jamaican bowlers and talkative Sri Lankan fielders."
If cricket takes off in the USA – and right now it looks like it might - historians will look back and say Joesph O'Neill was there when the explosion started.
John Holmes
Copyright: Cover Point
