A very funny book about an amateur cricket team, the Captain Scott Invitiation XI, formed by a group of Oxford undergraduates in the 1980’s. Harry Thompson was one of the founder members and went on to forge a career as a TV comedy producer, best known for co-creating Have I Got News for You and They Think It’s All Over. Sadly diagnosed with lung cancer he died just after completing this book.
The book follows the team as they embark on a mission to play cricket on each continent of the world. Lots of funny anecdotes about matches, opponents & nights out for the team told in a fluid light hearted manner. An enjoyable yarn of sporting incompetence.
It seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of eleven men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe.
Except – hold on a minute – that`s not a simple idea at all. And when you throw in incompetent airline officials, amorous Argentine Colonels` wives, cunning Bajan drug dealers, gay Australian waiters, overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiot Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and whole armies of pitch-invading Antarctic penguins, you quickly arrive at a whole lot more than you bargained for.
Harry Thompson`s hilarious book tells the story of one of those great idiotic enterprises that only an Englishman could have dreamed up, and only a bunch of Englishmen could possibly have wished to carry out.
Harry Thompson was the inventor and editor of many TV comedy series including Have I Got News For You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He was the author of acclaimed bestsellers, including Peter Cook: A Biography. His most recent book was a historical novel, This Thing of Darkness. He worked as a producer at Talkback TV and in his spare time ran an infamous cricket team, the Captain Scott XI. He died in November 2005.
