It was just over a century ago  when the lyrical Monty Don of his day sized up The Waste Land  and planted an unlikely thought for posterity with his withering line: “April is the cruellest month … “.

T S Eliot’s epic poem first published in 1922 set academic togues wagging and left several vegetable and flower  plotters confused over  best times to plant their  spuds and hollyhocks.

That opening shot from a modernist master continues as  a good excuse for a lively over-the-garden wall chunter between literary scholars and the down-to-earth  fork and spade brigade. I’m not averse to a spot of digging – but my time has come to pick up the quill and offer; “August can be the cruellest month” ….

It stands to reason I must be right as a long-serving cricket supporter from “Cowpat Corner” to Lord’s. I have mentioned before how the noble game is shoved into the long grass every year by soccer’s much-trumpeted return as high summer sun beats down. Followers and players of both sports move swiftly from irritated to downright cheesed off.

We had the recent  bonus of the Euros to remind us how hopes overloaded with complicated tactics and inflated expectations end regularly in bitter disappointment.

Now that same mob gear up for more meagre rations while cricketers and devoted followers at all levels chase honours and sunswept memories in the  “also-ran” background.

Neville Cardus, who wrote majestically about a game that has inspired more literary innings than any other, pointed out many boundaries ago: “

A season does not burst upon us as football does, full grown and arrogant It comes to us every year with a modesty that matches the slender tracery of  leaf and twig which belongs to the setting of every true cricket field in the season’s first days”.

The first-class scene has stolen from the village green to revive its financial fortunes and attract new interests.

Purists still frown on the one-day and limited over carnivals as they fill grounds all over the world.

 William Blake wrote a poem about the game. Lord Byron played for Harrow. James Joyce was an enthusiast. Samuel Beckett is the only Nobel Prize-winner for Literature to have appeared in Wisden.

 Many other academic and literary figures like Edmund Blunden, RC Sherriff, Siegfried Sassoon and Hugh de Selincourt took cricket as a diversion, albeit one to be passionately admired.

Cruellest month

Then there was JM Barrie, biggest inspiration for those of us for whom skill was never able to match enthusiasm. The creator of Peter Pan never wanted to grow up and his love affair with cricket never waned.

He formed a team of literary colleagues also fond of the game but, to put it mildly, short on talent. Barrie led them frequently to resounding defeat. The more distinguished as  authors were his men, the worse they played  - with the notable exception of Arthur Conan Doyle.

On the train journey to their first match, Barrie tried to get across finer points of the game. Like which side of the bat you hit with. He asked two African travellers the African  for “Heaven help us!”. The reply was “”Allahkbar”.   And from this the side took the name Allahakbarries.

Of course, a few unfortunate souls will never understand the game and  take a rather snobbish and dismissive stance. Like George Bernard Shaw, who on being told England had been successful in the Australian Tests, asked what they had been testing. Rudyard Kipling said cricket was “casting a ball at three straight sticks and defending the same with a fourth”.

For the bulk of  ardent admirers, however, it is easy to keep a sense of proportion. Take this item from the personal column of World Sport as s good example; “Retired gentleman would like to meet widow with two tickets for the Third Test with a view to matrimony. Kindly send photographs of tickets”.

This August is dominated by the Olympics  in Paris, a vast menu leaving sports fans spoilt for choice  ..but some of us can still look forward to our great summer game  back in the spotlight with three England v Sri Lanka Tests  at Old Trafford, Lord’s and The Oval  towards end of the month and early September.

By a quirky coincidence.  cricket is scheduled to return to the Olympics agenda at Los Angeles in four years’ time Only previous occasion  it  has featured on the running order  came at the summer Olympics in Paris in 1900 – with an entry of just two teams. France, mainly represented by English expatriates, faced off against the Devon and Somerset Wanderers, waving flags and bats on behalf of Great Britain.

A GB gold medal headed emphatically towards the pavilion  as result of a crushing win by158 runs. Despite such a  one-sided nature of this fixture, it is believed several jugs of “entente cordiale” were shared on banks of the Seine as both capitaines pushed the boat out