Yesterday I was able to visit one of the most beautiful places in England in the Spring. Being England, it rained on and off. I have also been experimenting with loading picture files and so I hope this works.

Paul Getty, an American but an anglophile, fell in love with cricket and decided to create a cricket ground exactly as it should be in the grounds of his estate in the Chiltern Hills. The Wisden Group has been allowed to host an annual tournament there and I was lucky enough to be invited.

Here is a picture of the ground. You will notice covers on the pitch, an attempt to keep the playing area dry. In the background is the pavilion.

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This next shot is the scorebox which is beautiful and traditional in the sense that the numbers are too small to be seen from the spectators' area. Squinting at the score is one of the pleasures of the game.

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And this picture shows the team lists for the tournament itself. The whole world as understood by the British Empire is pretty well represented. I was playing for the West Indies and we suffered a humiliating defeat to India. And Australia beat England just to make things worse.

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Cricket may not be the most universally comprehensible sport but at least it is played in beautiful surroundings.