Cricket
I started photographing the game of cricket in New York City as a kind of exercise in the exotic. The game was utterly foreign, yet widely played in the outer boroughs by mostly Pakistanis, Indians and West Indians; it was fascinating to watch and because it took so long to play a game, and everybody dressed so nicely, I thought it made a perfect camera subject.
I soon fell in with a few Australian and British expats whose ideas of nightly entertainment were nearly my own, only more so. Rather than let me come out and watch a few of their "friendly" matches, they insisted I play. So at an age when most men would rather whack small balls off a tee than try to hit larger ones, nearly as hard, thrown at them, I did my best to learn to play.
I was, of course, a dreadful batsman. Years of swinging bats in American games ruined me utterly for any hope of appearing stylish with the willow blade.
Note to Americans:But I loved fielding, a chance to watch the game close up, and, oddly enough, I had some success bowling (my unorthodox, yet legal, delivery and good length were all that was needed on the uniformly poor U.S. pitches). Of course, playing the game soon became more important to me than photographing it. And I rarely mixed the two..
Everthing you must do to bat well in baseball is completely wrong in cricket. And that is all I will say here by way of explaining the game.
