Mark Newham

Cometh the Yuan: Just One Thing Stands Between China and Total World Domination... the Marylebone Cricket Club Mark Newham

They said it could never happen. They said such a national treasure would never be allowed to fall into China's insatiable grasping clutches.And anyway, they said, what could China possibly want with the spiritual home of the game of cricket?Retribution, said some. Lord's Cricket Ground owes its eighteenth century origins to fortunes made from getting the Chinese hooked on opium and now it's payback time. Nonsense, said China. We're just extending a helping hand to a western cultural icon in a financial fix. Honest. Smelling a sizeable rat in China's assurances, the fraternity of world cricket starts digging. What it unearths is enough to shake western civilisation to its roots. With England's hosting of the Cricket World Cup just a year away, China's motives for taking an interest in Lord's are not only not honourable, it discovers, they're simply not cricket. Sample chapter and the full Guardian review can be viewed at:  moriartimedia.com/theworks.htm