The Premier League’s ultimate village cricket team - including Arsenal, Man City and Man Utd stars

For most English cricket fans, the start of an Ashes series is the pinnacle of the summer. But for those noble souls among us who play village cricket, it is little more than a distraction. The village game, you see, is the purest form of the sport – unfettered by commercialism, professionalism, quality or indeed sobriety, but blessed with a simple commitment to sport for its own sake and to boosting the local economy. By which I mean the pub.

Village cricket is, of course, peopled by a diverse and bizarre cast of characters, who seem to settle into certain well-worn tropes as a part of some natural process caused by our cricketing incompetence. But which roles would the great and the good of football fill? Which Premier League players and managers would be seen on the village green, getting an all-over sunburn and offering silent prayers to any watching gods that the ball never comes in their direction?

Well, let’s take a few educated guesses at what fate would have had in store for some of the biggest names in English football had they abandoned their dreams of professional soccer and instead stepped down the path of the Sunday cricket player…

Pep Guardiola – the captain

It is hard to imagine any social setting in which Guardiola would not take immediate charge. In a village side, he would naturally be the captain, partly due to being the only person who seems actively excited by the hassle of corralling eleven people together every week and working out a batting order which doesn’t immediately enrage half of the team.

Of course, he would be the worst kind of captain – the one who insists on trying to get complicated fielding drills going before play begins, the one constantly fussing over fielding positions, the one screaming in agony at the sky every time someone drops a catch (which, at this sort of level, is most of them). He would have read Mike Brierley’s “The Art of Captaincy” several times, and his copy would have small colour-coded post-it notes peeking over the top of the pages.

Still, he would be tolerated, partly because cricketers willing to endure the administrative tedium of captaincy are a rare breed, and partly because his enormous enthusiasm after scraping a two-wicket win over Hetton Clopsley Second XI would be so genuine that it becomes infectious. Would stand his round at the bar, but would jet off after one in an expensive sportscar.

Sean Dyche – the angry fast bowler

There’s something about the art of fast bowling which attracts a very specific type of man – a man who was probably once quite athletic but is now hindered by a spot of middle-age spread, who sweats profusely through his sunburn as he trundles into bowl, who grunts like a professional tennis player with every delivery, and who appeals for wickets by screaming on his knees like Tim Robbins in the Shawshank Redemption after he makes it through the sewer. Sean Dyche looks exactly like at least fifty percent of all such men.

Of course, when we say “fast” bowlers, any speedgun which happened to be pointed in their direction would reveal that the ball rarely gets above 65mph these days – but a combination of an unwillingness to let go of their youthful vigour and a sense of incandescent rage aimed at the entire world means they still put every last sinew into it, regardless of the results. For some reason, when they aren’t Everton managers, they always work in insurance or banking. Which probably explains the anger.

Bruno Fernandes – the whinger

If Bruno were to exchange his boots for second-hand spikes, he would surely be everyone’s least favourite player – the whinger. The man who disputes every umpiring decision, who chunters away in the bar for at least half an hour about the injustice of his dismissals, who openly debates Mankading opposing players (but has never had the guts to go through with it) and who once became the only player in the team’s history to appeal for obstructing the field during an infamous incident a few summers ago.

Despite irritating most of his own team-mates – not to mention the opposition – players like Bruno’s cricketing alter ego never fail to get a game, because they are also always the first to make themselves available, regardless of the anguish that every game seems to cause them. Some cricketers are simply sadomasochists and have forgotten how to live without the ritual humiliation of being clean bowled for a duck against Crockpot Walmsley. Nobody can recall him ever getting a round in, despite his ability to list off the many occasions upon which he has done so under cross-examination.

Bukayo Saka – the small child

A few times every summer, the opposition will trot out with a very small boy or girl in tow, usually the captain’s own child. They will bat at three, but only after said captain/father has warned you that at their age, they can only be expected to face the gentlest of bowling. Sean Dyche will be sent to huff and puff at third man as soon as the first wicket falls.

It will then swiftly become clear that said small child is in fact the captain of Lancashire Under-15s and will flay the medium pacers to the boundary with a series of effortless and elegant on-drives. The skipper will think about bringing Dyche back on just to give the precocious little swot something to chew on, but will be stared down witheringly by the umpires the moment the thought crosses his mind. Having retired out following a glorious fifty, it will be later also come to light that as well as being far better than anyone else on the field at cricket, the small child is also top of their class in an extremely expensive boarding school and plays field hockey for their country. As they sit quietly at the back of the bar sipping a Fruit Shoot, they will be oblivious to the fact that everyone despises them out of sheer jealousy.

Jack Grealish – the drunk

Village cricket is perhaps the most alcohol-adjacent of all sports, and indeed the smallest unit of time known to science is the gap between the close of play and the first pint poured in the bar afterwards. Most players, however, at least have sufficient sense of decorum to wait until after the game is finished, or at least until they’ve batted. But there is, as they say, always one.

Grealish would be the lad who fields at fine leg with a can just over the boundary rope. A swig after every delivery, but at least no penalty runs. Once a season, a shot will score a direct hit on said can, sending beer flying to a chorus of “way-heys” from the spectators. He is always first to the ground, presumably so he can sneak a quick half in at opening time before anyone catches him. If called upon to umpire for a bit, he will have a tin in his hand. After the game, he’ll be first into the bar and last out, and will have spent at least half an hour trying to chat up the older players’ daughters. Despite never having faced a ball anything less than half-cut, he is a surprisingly useful middle-order bat, so nobody ever makes too much of a fuss.

Graham Potter – the cricket badger

Slight of build and polite by nature, the cricket badger is a staple of the village game. Not necessarily especially good at what they do, they are nevertheless blessed – or more accurately cursed - with an unswerving adoration for the game and a full set of Wisdens, carefully arranged in the correct order on a custom-made bookshelf. Graham Potter seems like the sort.

With a head full of statistics and a picture-perfect memory of every wicket that fell in England’s 1997 tour of Pakistan, they typically bowl accurate off-spinners that don’t turn an inch and bat wristily but largely ineffectively. Let them get going at the bar and they will reel off every cricket anecdote in Dickie Bird’s autobiography. Which is a lot of anecdotes. The only person at the club who has ever volunteered to score, and has his own colour-coded pens for the purpose.

Roy Hodgson – the elderly umpire

No village cricket match is complete without a doddery gentleman, allegedly a very fine player in his day, whose body will stand up to no rigours past a bit of umpiring - which he will do every Sunday without fail, if only to get out of the house. He can’t see too well anymore and he frequently loses count of the balls in the over, but he’s a part of the furniture and so genial that nobody ever dares bring up the question of when he’ll finally retire. Roy Hodgson fits the mould perfectly.

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He won’t stand his round at the bar, because someone will always get one for him. He probably doesn’t say too much, but will occasionally get a little misty-eyed over forgotten county batsmen of the Seventies. At least, a little more misty-eyed, because those glasses really aren’t doing too much these days. Usually the only person involved in a cricket match that absolutely everyone likes, even the people he’s given out in spite of all apparent evidence that they should not have been – and I say this as a man who was once given out LBW by a pensioner with very evident cataracts.