So what is cricket? Everyone knows its the large green grass pitch, way larger than a hockey or football pitch, with the focus on bowler and batter in front of 3 little upright poles with one perched on top, and several fielders around the edge to run fast and get the ball before it hits the perimeter and scores 6, throw it back for team mates to try and get the batter out. The players wear white, the umpires wear a smart sort of coat and a brimmed hat and several of them because of the size of the pitch, and the spectators sit around the edge good humoured, often with a book in hand to read a few lines during the times of changeover of end, or the bowler making the long walk back to the start of another run, a little jump, arms circle around like a windmill, and the leather ball flies towards the batter, thwack, the batter’s wooden bat hits leather ball, and another brief burst of activity erupts, before repeat, eyes to book, and general peace and goodwill amongst all.
For interest this writer looked up the history of cricket more specifically than just general knowledge and because of its distaste of cut and paste when IP is not clear, the website of the ICC gives a potted history of cricket as from the gentle Weald lands of SE England, and the fact of 1745 the first recorded Women’s Cricket, thereby negating the modern feminist narrative of being excluded from everything in the public realm. Men, ladies, umpires, regular spectators and the Barmy Army, only a tongue in cheek army, all formed a settled part of local and national life for a very long time and which ticked along very happily. It still does for some, but like everything slow and concentrated is not possible for the i-phone generation and who don’t read books, cricket is also falling to the one-day quick knock out, but so far the real full game over several days still exists and so still cricket is cricket in every sense of the word.
https://www.icc-cricket.com/about/cricket/history-of-cricket/early-cricket
If something is not cricket it could be any other sport like football or tennis or hockey, because cricket is only cricket, governed by the ICC, unless it is French cricket and that still is cricket-like but does not have, or need, any international governing body.
If something is “just not cricket” then that’s a whole different thing altogether. It leaves the physical fact of a particular sport which like a national territory cannot be another territory, and goes into the realm of metaphor. It is not that one-day exciting cricket is just not cricket, it is not referring to cricket at all. And it could be referring to anything at all, that something is being done in a way which slightly demeans the original. What it actually means, this writer has just looked it up, Cambridge Dictionary, ‘it’s not fair, honest or moral,’ Wikipedia, ‘unsportsmanlike conduct in sports, business, or life in general,’ and Collins Dictionary, ‘unfair or unreasonable behaviour.’
Scenes of fighting between just about everybody at the Rabat African Cup football final provide a very useful viewpoint onto the world of sport itself and the now global organisations. The Daily Mirror – link below to avoid any IP cut and paste – has some photos of what it describes as the crazy scenes, and lists 11 stages of the descent into chaos – the match descended into chaos, Senegal staged a dramatic walk-off, controversial refereeing decisions sparked fury, Sadio Mane acted as peacemaker, a missed penalty left a star in tears, Morocco used ‘dirty’ towel tactics (i.e. stealing), Pape Gueye secured the dramatic victory, press conferences collapsed as coaches clashed, clashes erupted in the stands, official condemnation from CAF and FIFA, illness outbreak decimated Senegal’s squad.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/afcon-final-chaos-senegal-morocco-36575576
It could be said that the African Cup of National 2025 final, played just into 2026, was “just not cricket.”
If the scenes are taken according to an internationally accepted standard of football then a localised scrap is expected, with the possibility of a player being sent off or getting a red card if it was just too much intent to fight, but its a physical sport (the men’s game) and what is fighting or just giving a shove is a fine line, and expected. So events in Rabat did not meet the internationally accepted standard of behaviour under FIFA.
Government relations between Senegal and Morocco, which do not share a geographical border, are very good, very good. The two governments keen to move above the scenes in Rabat have launched the 15th session of the Morocco-Senegal Joint High Commission to take place on January 26-27th in Rabat, with an economic event held alongside to further strengthen business and culture ties. The last Joint High Commission took place in Dakar in 2013 and at governmental level the ties are strong.
As the 2030 World Cup is scheduled to take place in Morocco, the international FIFA and the higher echelons of the football organisations have 5 years to get their heads around the recent scenes and the arrival of global football onto the violence strewn pitch, images and memories of January 2026. Not an easy task.
But at ground level, literally and metaphorically, amongst humans with no government role or ideal to uphold, behaviour does not adhere to internationally recognised standards. The regional nature of violence does not really fit into United Nations global standards and definitions, or the FIFA organisation. The centuries old game of cricket the slow way, over a few days, with generally similar cultural norms of players and spectators, including the Barmy Army who would never engage in towel stealing, possible poisonings, umpire hat stealing, etc., would never have to get the head around how to explain localised events with the ICC.
Events in Rabat could not be clearer on the disjunct between global organisations and local cultural norms. Violence in west Africa is a cultural norm in both acceptable levels of violence within family groups, adult on children (women and men), male on female and female on male, the level of cultural violence is high. Someone would say, how insulting, prove it. But it does prove and anyone knowing anything about west African society and culture knows that. Also in Africa (the huge land mass which has no one identity other than the name extended from either a Yemenite chieftain invading north Africa in C2 BCE or the Romans applying Africa Proconsularis to what is now Tunisia, or probably from both) are still the distinct tribes with distinct territories and languages, with the western national lines of ‘nation state’ drawn across complicated tribal lands. With such reality of society having been long supressed in the ‘UK’ and any public violence put swiftly in prison by Sir Kier Starmer, such general scenes as at Rabat are rarely seen because of the disjunct between global organisation and politics, and the ordinary societal behaviours of biological humans on physical Earth.
Climate and culture – two very obvious facts that global organisation has reached its limit. Climate of sports events which were never played out of their climatic region and relevance before the last few decades, and cultural levels of acceptable, and normal, behaviour are two very clear evidences that human behaviour on Earth is far from logical. Or is there three? Sadio Mane acted as leader, not a democratic vote or consultation or forum, but one person acting as leader in charge. From that something was salvaged, and the western media makes him a hero. But the function of leadership is shown, the action and the outcome, yes, this event in Rabat shows three very clear evidences that human behaviour on Earth is far from logical.