Getting Out The Ukrainian Cricket Team's Last Stand on the Front Lines of War

by Campion, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9781801506809
• ISBN10: 1801506809
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2024-11-12
• Publisher: Pitch Publishing

Summary

The remarkable story of how Ukraine's cricketers helped the people around them to escape from Russia’s invasion in 2022, including first-hand accounts of the war.

When the invasion started, the cricketers were suddenly in a fight for their lives. As the team’s India-born players led a mass evacuation from the shelling of Kharkiv, and their coach, a South African teacher, sheltered from the bombings in Kyiv in his bathtub, the squad’s Ukrainian players took themselves to the front lines to defend their country. Meanwhile, some Ukrainian refugees began to play cricket in a park in southern Europe.

As well as eyewitness accounts of the first days of the war in Kyiv and Kharkiv, and first-hand reports from the war zones in Bucha and Bakhmut, the book holds many light-hearted stories – from the players who had to be freed from a police cell before a game, to the biofuel developer who became Ukraine's first professional cricketer.

It’s a story of courage, determination and hope.

Author Biography

Jonathan Campion writes about cricket in unusual places for the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. He lived in Ukraine from 2007 until 2010, working as a translator and editor at international firms in Kyiv. He has written about Ukraine for Lonely Planet, and about other parts of Eastern Europe in several books and magazines. He lives in Norwich, and plays for the wandering charity cricket team The Metronomes CC.