‘Fine Men from Afar’: Cricket and Empire on the Home Front

During the Second World War, contrary to enduring images of bombardment and scarcity, people on Britain's ‘Home Front’ continued to take part in a broad array of sporting activities. Cricket played a more significant role in the wartime sporting landscape than many historians have previously recognized. Furthermore, between 1939 and 1945, a substantial portion of the cricket played – particularly within the island of Great Britain – carried pronounced imperial dimensions. Attracting large crowds, widely reported and broadcast wartime cricket gave tangible form to the idea, in ways accessible to mass audiences, that England belonged to a broad imperial community of colonies and dominions sustained by their active involvement in the war effort and loyalty to England's cultural traditions. At the same time, the history of wartime cricket reveals the complexity of racialized wartime identities. By examining these largely overlooked aspects of wartime social and cultural life – shaped by clear propagandistic aims and messages – this article contributes to the historiography of empire and imperial sentiment during the Second World War, deepens our understanding of wartime cricket and sport, and advances scholarship on the wartime politics of ‘race’.