Tales from the Hollywood Cricket Club

It may come as a surprise to some that cricket is not only played in Hollywood, but vigorously pursued in an intense Californian competition. The Hollywood CC is the oldest of the California clubs, and many famous Tinsel Town folk have turned out for it – people like Cary Grant, David Niven and Errol Flynn.

The club was started in 1932 by C. Aubrey Smith, the tall, aristocratic gentlemen who appeared in a string of B&W movies, usually playing the well-born Englishman or a Ruritanian nobleman – as in The Prisoner of Zenda – who always stood for honour and duty.

Smith was perfect for the founder of a cricket club because he not only embodied the fine values with which cricket was once imbued, but was a dab hand at the crease.

He played a test for England in 1924 and faced the Aussie touring team led by Arthur Mailey.

For those whose granddad might not have told them, Mailey was the Shane Warne of his time only better – in the second innings of one Ashes test he took 9 for 121. Against Gloucester he took 10 for 66 and those figures were wittily reflected in a book he wrote titled ‘10 For 66 and All That.’ Aubrey Smith scored a very respectable 24 runs against one of the all-time great spinners.

Who else played for the club back then? Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (Holmes and Watson), Ronald Coleman (Lost Horizon), Douglas Fairbank Jr. (Sinbad), Edmund Gwenn (The Trouble with Harry). And P.G. Wodehouse (the Jeeves novels) was the scorer.

Once, when Laurence Olivier arrived in town, Aubrey Smith called him and told him to report to the nets in the morning. Olivier didn’t have any flannels but Smith found some for him. And a pair of spare cricket boots that belonged to the wicket keeper, Boris Karloff.

Olivier said later that they must have been the boots Karloff wore in Bride of Frankenstein – Olivier stuffed them with paper and they still kept falling off.

Apparently, many of the stars played cricket according to their movie personas. Niven was all elegant strokes, while Flynn would dance down the pitch, hit two sixes and be cleaned bowled next ball whereupon he’d rush back to the babes on his yacht.

Claude Rains, so the story goes, was once given out LBW, and echoing his famous line from Casablanca, called to the umpire, “I’m shocked! Shocked!”

And there was quite a Ladies Auxiliary in the tea tent: Joan Fontaine and her sister Olivia De Havilland, Merle Oberon and Elsa Lanchester.

Several major cricket stars, passing through, had a dig and a bowl for the team: Gubby Allen, Denis Compton, Godfrey Evans and Len Hutton to name but a few.

These days the club plays in the hotly contested Southern California Cricket Association and many fine players from the subcontinent have padded up: Ronnie Iranpur, Mark Azeez, Rajesh Chauhan, Nikhil Chopra, Rajinder Singh Ghai and Igbal Sikander. At the end of the 2001 season the club twice fielded a former Indian Test captain, the controversial Ajay Jadeja. No lack of talent, as you can see.

So next time you find yourself in LA, instead of going to a movie in Westwood, go out to Woodley Park and watch some pretty good cricket.

You could get lucky – maybe Nicole Kidman will offer you a cucumber sandwich.