Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion: A Cricket Odyssey Through Latin America

by Timothy Abraham, James Coyne

'A highly entertaining read, deftly melding social history with sporting memoir and travelogue' Mail on SundayA history of Latin America through cricketCricket was the first sport played in almost every country of the Americas - earlier than football, rugby or baseball. In 1877, when England and Australia played the inaugural Test match at the MCG, Uruguay and Argentina were already ten years into their derby played across the River Plate.The visionary cricket historian Rowland Bowen said that, during the highpoint of cricket in South America between the two World Wars, the continent could have provided the next Test nation. In Buenos Aires, where British engineers, merchants and meatpackers flocked to make their fortune, the standard of cricket was towering figures like Lord Hawke and Plum Warner took star-studded teams of Test cricketers to South America, only to be beaten by Argentina. A combined Argentine, Brazilian and Chilean team took on the first-class counties in England in 1932. The notion of Brazilians and Mexicans playing T20 at the Maracana or the Azteca today is not as far-fetched as it sounds.But Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion is also a social history of grit, industry and nation-building in the New World. West Indian fruit workers battled yellow fever and brutal management to carve out cricket fields next to the railway lines in Costa Rica. Cricket was the favoured sport of Chile's Nitrate King. Emperors in Brazil and Mexico used the game to curry favour with Europe. The notorious Pablo Escobar even had a shadowy connection to the game. The fate of cricket in South America was symbolised by Eva Peron ordering the burning down of the Buenos Aires Cricket Club pavilion when the club refused to hand over their premises to her welfare scheme.Cricket journalists Timothy Abraham and James Coyne take us on a journey to discover this largely untold story of cricket's fate in the world's most colourful continent. Fascinating and surprising, Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion is a valuable addition to cricketing and social history.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction

425 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 27, 2021

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a helpful reminder that behind the seeming monolith of dominant cultural forms and activities lies a huge range of activities: in this case cricket that seems out of place. For the most part, the game is played either in several parts of Britain’s former empire, or in places where there was and is a sizeable British sphere of influence or presence. Across all of Latin America, only Argentina fits that bill (noting also that South America includes small British, French and Dutch enclaves on Brazil’s northern border. In giving us a sense of the presence of cricket from northern Mexico to the Straits of Magellan, this is a gentle and easy read.

But it is also a bit like a string of after dinner talks, light, anecdotal and alternating between celebratory and perplexed with some fairly colonial views of localities and histories. I get the appeal, I see that there’s a market for these things, and I find out new things from some of this genre – as I did from this. But it’s not my thing – the chatty stories of some fairly privileged chaps meandering around the Americas finishes up being light on the sorts of historical analyses that I prefer. On top of that, the really interesting stuff about local versions and adaptations of the game, accommodating the outlooks and circumstances of the social excluded and marginalised, is more often than not skipped over in a sentence or two, if that. In that sense, it’s the ideal thing for that cricket loving uncle. Entertaining but ultimately too unstructured and unrewarding.

[Denis Southall · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the whole an entertaining cricket odyssey around Central and South America exploring the history with bits on the current state of the game in these areas. I found it bitty in places and lost track of the people or team being explored (maybe that's more me than the writing) on occasion. As with much cricket history it is linked to issues around colonialism, class and exclusion and I think the authors didn't shy from this. If you like cricket (culture) and history, you'll very much enjoy this.

[Jaylani Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this book. As a cricket fan, I am glad to see a book discussing the history of cricket in a region that is known for its hardcore love of football (soccer). Love how the author discuss the sport in each nation by chapter. I wish there is a book like this about cricket in Africa (other than in South Africa), Arab World and Europe.

[Patrick Tarbox · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was good! I get the challenge: there’s not enough to be a full travelogue but not enough to be a full history and the authors did their best to balance that out and make it work. I did really enjoy the final chapter and the discussions of the geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges of the future and kind of wish more of that was sprinkled in early. Good read!

[David Bull · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a dull recounting of history, not nearly enough focus on current game in Latin America