Playing the Game -

Cricket and the Two World Wars - During the two world wars cricketers from all over the world, redirected their sporting energies and passion towards the war effort. A huge number of them were never to return.

Cricket in the First World War
On the outbreak of war in 1914 hundreds of amateurs playing county cricket who held commissions in the Territorial Army joined their regiments, while many professional cricketers had enlisted as volunteers before it was decided, as late as January 1915 that the following summer’s

Championship matches would not go ahead.
The buildings at Lord’s, Old Trafford, Trent Bridge and the county grounds of Derbyshire and Leicestershire were given over to accommodation for army units and military hospitals, while many cricket clubs turned their grounds over to agricultural use to aid the war effort. Balls Park in Hertford remained a hayfield until 1920.

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