No, we didn't believe it either. The story became even more incongruous when we learnt that the name of Guantanamo Cricket Club's opening bowler is (can you guess?) Stalin.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Uncle Joe (surely that MUST be his sobriquet?) didn’t take too kindly to his LBW appeal being rejected in Cuba’s first ever match against an England XI, although thankfully the umpires weren't taken to a gulag the next day.
The tale of Guantanamo Cricket Club is just one of the wonderful stories described in a new book 'Third Man in Havana - Finding the Heart of Cricket in the World’s Most Unlikely Places' by Tom Rodwell.
The self-penned book describes - as the video above outlines - how over a six year period Rodwell, Chairman of The Lord’s Taverners, helped run cricketing programmes from Cuba to Zimbabwe, attempting to soothe the world’s ills with the curiously English balm known as cricket.
As well as the unlikely yarn of a cricket club in Guantanamo, we also learn about Israel’s Be’er Sheva Cricket Club, whose pavilion is a converted nuclear bomb shelter, which is pretty damn useful when Hamas’ regular rocket attacks temporarily stop play.
We'll certainly be trying to blag a copy; or failing that clicking on the picture below to buy one.
Where next?
The Plan by Steve James | Book review
Chasing Sachin by Adam Carroll-Smith | Book Review
Jack Hobbs by Leo McKinstry | Book review
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