White West Indians have produced more first-class players per thousand of their population than any other community anywhere

Racial generalizations - about certain people being good at ball games - won't help. There has been no West African cricketer; the only Chinese cricketers of standing have come from Trinidad; and, though the fact is seldom noticed, white West Indians have produced more first-class players per thousand of their population than any other community anywhere. Consider now the history of the islands: slavery until 1834, indentured labour until 1917. And then consider the cricket code: gentlemanliness, fair play, teamwork. The very words are tired and, in the West Indian situation, ridiculous, irrelevant. But they filled a need. In islands that had known only brutality and proclaimed greed, cricket and its code provided an area of rest, a release for much that was denied by the society: skill, courage, style: the graces, the very things that a changed world are making the game archaic.   

V.S. Naipaul, 'The Caribbean flavour' (1963), R. Guha (ed.), The Picador book of cricket (2001), 433-4

This game could be laid up in heaven, a Platonic idea of cricket in perfection.

If some good fairy were to ask me to pick out one match of all I have seen, to relive it as I lived it as the time when it happened, my choice would be easy: England v. Australia at Lord's in June 1930. I was at the prime of forty years then, fulfilled in work and happy in home, love and health, the mind still unstaled, yet critical enough. This game could be laid up in heaven, a Platonic idea of cricket in perfection. It was limited to four days and finished at five o'clock on the closing afternoon; 1,601 runs were scored and 29 wickets fell. Bradman batted in a Test match at Lord's for the first time, scoring 254 in his first innings. England batted first and made 425, but lost by 7 wickets. Glorious sunshine blessed every moment's play. London was at its most handsome; 1914 forgotten and 1939 not yet casting a shadow for all to see. I can still catch the warmth and the animation of the scene, feel the mind's and the senses' satisfaction. I can see Grimmett bowling, his arm as low as my grandfather's, his artfulness as acute, and I can still see Chapman as he played one of the most gallant and dazzling and precarious innings which has ever cocked a snook at an Australian team ready and impatient to put to rout and ruin an England team apparently in the last ditch, the ghost about to be given up.

N. Cardus, 'The ideal cricket match' (1956), R. Guha (ed.), The Picador book of cricket (2001), 317-8

If he ever went after the role of an emperor, the price of the second favourite a the audition would be 33-1 and drifting

His [Viv Richards] demeanour at such moments has been described as insouciant, but regal might be nearer the mark. The downward curve of the fine nose, the level gaze, the wide expressive mouth within the handsome beard - all combine to indicate that if he ever went after the role of an emperor, the price of the second favourite a the audition would be 33-1 and drifting.

H. McIlvanney, 'Black is beautiful' (1985), R. Guha (ed.), The Picador book of cricket (2001), 202

Miller is as an Olympian god among mortals

To young eyes, quickest to perceive the things that make cricket, Miller is as an Olympian god among mortals. He brings boys' dreams to life He is the cricketer they would all like to be, the one who can hit more gloriously and bowl faster than anybody on earth. When Neville Cardus called him a young eagle among crows and daws Miller was not a champion playing out of his class; sharing the field were him were the elect of the world's two greatest cricketing countries, Bradman, Hammond and bearers of other famous names, Compton and other men of personality

Masculine as Tarzan, he plays lustily. Style suffuses his cricket with glowing power, personality charges it with daring and knocks bowling and convention sky-high. 

R. Robinson, 'Touch of a Hero' (1951), R. Guha (ed.), The Picador book of cricket (2001), 126

Dick Turner had long since coined the word 'teetotal' and the exponents of that ghastly creed were preaching misery throughout the land

Another factor which contributed to the falling demand [for sherry] was the changing moral attitude towards drink. By the 1880s Victorian smugness and philistinism were reaching their peak; the Salvation Army had been beating its drums for years and saving souls from the torments of alcohol; Dick Turner had long since coined the word 'teetotal' and the exponents of that ghastly creed were preaching misery throughout the land; pious faces could be seen every Sunday leaving tin tabernacles to threaten publicans with eternal damnation. There were, of course, a few of the enlightened, but Saintsbury's influence lay still in the future and G.K. Chesterton was far too young to compose the rimes of The Flying Inn. The naughty nineties were hardly in sight, and when they did come they bright young things only thought of champagne.

J. Jeffs, Sherry (6th edition, 2016), 74

During the regicide disgrace of the Protectorate, sherry suffered a short-lived eclipse

During the regicide disgrace of the Protectorate, sherry suffered a short-lived eclipse but this arose more as a result of matters in Spain than from the change of government in England. During the Civil War and afterwards the nobility, who had been the greatest buyers of wine, could no longer buy it on their accustomed scale. Some were exiled and others impoverished. Although the Puritans detested drunkenness and gluttony, they had no objections to drinking in moderation. The awful heresy of teetotalism was not to emerge for another three hundred years. ... But the beginnings of the Commonwealth coincided with the start of years of terrible plague in Jerez which resulted in the disruption of the wine trade for over two decades.

J. Jeffs, Sherry (6th edition, 2016), 24

Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, who discovered Florida, was the son of a Jerez wine grower

All his [Columbus'] efforts, his intrigues with the Church and the monarchy, his triumphs and disappointments, the elaborate preparations for his voyages, the voyages themselves, all were centred on Andalusia. From Andalusia he gathered his forces, and many of the men came from the Sherry towns. He set forth from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on his third journey, to discover the island of Trinidad in 1498, and Sanlúcar was soon established as a major port for the new American trade; it was the port from which Pizzaro set sail twenty-five years later on his way to conquer Peru. Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, who discovered Florida, was the son of a Jerez wine grower.

J. Jeffs, Sherry (6th edition, 2016), 12