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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport

BIZARRE: Cricket has always had its dark arts | Mind Blowing Facts

Silhouettes of cricket players against setting sun
An editorial said ‘cricket’s moral code conceals a rich history of cheating and convenient national myth’. Photograph: Marvin woodyatt/Alamy

Regarding your editorial on cricket fair play (30 July), as an elderly cricket fan, I can remember being told as a small boy to watch a Yorkshire wicketkeeper who was known, when standing up to the bowler, to nudge the stumps with his toe when the ball was close enough to make it look like “bowled out”. But in those days, league cricket was serious business and not played for fun.
Tony Brown
Kingston, Ontario, Canada

• May I present the Seagull outboard race scandal of 1963? At a regatta in Coverack, I was hanging over the bow to keep it down when we were overtaken by a faster boat. With a boathook, I carefully pushed his fuel tap shut; he mysteriously stopped several yards short of the finish line. Did we carry away the prize: 2/6d? My lips are sealed.
Jonathan Fletcher
Helston, Cornwall

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