AJ Raffles was a fictional character as famous for being a burglar as a bowler but the present-day antics of the man who blagged his way into the Lord’s pavilion have proved no laughing matter
Given everything else that’s been going on it’s just possible you’ve missed the curious escapades of the Lord’s forger. So let’s flick over a minute and catch up on what’s been happening at Southwark crown court, where one of the stranger little sports stories around has just finished in a 10-month suspended prison sentence, a £10,000 fine, 150 hours of community service, and a reminder that even though cricket is synonymic with a sense of fair play, it has always had a natural affinity with a certain kind of criminal activity, too, that it’s also a game for fakers, rakes, rogues and knaves.
First among them, as far apart as Bradman himself, one of England’s very greatest and most famous burglars, AJ Raffles, amateur cracksman, gentleman thief, and according to his author EW Hornung, “a dangerous bat, a brilliant field, and perhaps the very finest slow bowler of his decade”. All this, Hornung wrote in his famous series of short stories, even though Raffles had lost his enthusiasm for the sport once he started out in his life of crime. After all, “what’s the satisfaction of taking a man’s wicket when you want his spoons?”
Written by Andy Bull
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/17/crickets-criminal-streak-and-the-curious-case-of-the-lords-forger under the title “
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