Tom Peterkin on cricket

Like David Maddox, I was irritated to learn of Sandra White's pathetically parochial moan about the amount of coverage devoted to this year's Ashes Series.
Like many Scots, I look forward to this great sporting contest and even - shock, horror - hope that England do well. To suggest that cricket is of little interest to Scots shows at best a misunderstanding of a great Scottish sporting tradition. At worst, it suggests a knee-jerk antipathy to all things English.
Growing up in Forfar, one of the greatly loved personalities in the town was the late Nigel Hazel, a famous Bermudan professional who seemed to play forever and hit many mighty sixes for Strathmore. Elsewhere in Angus, Kirriemuir's most famous son J.M. Barrie also loved cricket and gifted the village cricket pavillion complete with a camera obscura.
Barrie took his own team the Allahackbarries to Kirrie to play a match to open said pavillion. Included in the side was the famous Australian test player Arthur Mailey. Another talented cricketer to play for the Allahackbarries, was the Scottish creator of Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle, who was a First Class player. Scouring the internet the other day, I discovered that my great uncle W.C.G. Peterkin scored 47 for the Grange against the MCC at Raeburn Place a few years before he was incarcerated in a POW camp during the Second World War.
As someone from the West, White ought to realise that there is a flourishing cricket scene in her neck of the woods. After all, that great West Indian batsman Gordon Greenidge was once professional for Greenock while Mike Denness, the Scot who captained England, was born in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire.
In the coming days, I doubt very much that we will hear English complaints about the amount of coverage that will be devoted to this week's Open Championship. Scotland gave golf to the world and England gave cricket. Both games are enjoyed by people in both countries - something that we should perhaps recognise in a modern tolerant Scotland.