In This Issue

Not many batsmen can boast of taking guard with the Hagia Sophia cathedral at cover and the Blue Mosque towering over the midwicket boundary. Yet for Oli Broom there is little time for reflection – the heart of Istanbul’s Sultanahmet district is just the latest unusual ground and Turkey the latest unlikely country in a cricketing journey that will not conclude until he reaches Australia this November.

Broom, 29, has given up a career as a chartered surveyor to cycle from London to Brisbane in time for the first Ashes Test. He set off from London on October 10 and his adventure will take him through 20-odd countries and over 15,000 miles, playing cricket wherever and with whoever he can find on his way. He is intending to raise £50,000 each for two charities: the Lord’s Taverners, who help disadvantaged children to play cricket, and the British Neurological Research Trust.

The Hagia Sophia – for 1,000 years commonly acknowledged as the greatest building on earth – now joins the fourth-century Kalemegdan Fort in Belgrade and other, less glamorous destinations as unconventional cricketing landmarks of his trip so far. Game over, friends made, he repacks his bike and sets off alone for the next point on his map. Istanbul marks the completion of Europe, and the start of the most testing stretch of his journey to date.

Broom decided to do the trip a year ago, having become bored of life in London and wanting to challenge himself. All he needed was a purpose for what he initially identified as a selfish desire for adventure. Then a friend asked him to cycle to Australia to see her and, when Broom realised the Ashes started in November, it all clicked.  “From that moment I was cycling to the Ashes,” he says. “I love cricket and it was a really interesting route – although I had to forgo central Asia and the idea of a solid bike ride to Australia because it was too impractical for that time of year. I decided to go through Africa, which means I will cycle just as far even if it involves the odd boat. I didn’t have a clue about cricket around the world outside the Test nations but I am hooked on it now.”

By the end of December he had played cricket in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey. “The passion of some of the people I meet is infectious,” he says. “I have played with school kids in Belgium, friends in Germany, girls in Austria, indoors in Hungary and with former rugby league players in Serbia.

“The Austrians are probably the most developed of the countries so far. They have a great youth programme, they had four girls in the team – I opened the batting against two local teenage girls. I’m slightly ashamed to say I got a few that day. In Slovakia I met up with a Lancastrian called Gill who is teaching cricket as an extra-curricular sport at her school in Bratislava – she loves the game. Then I played at the National Sports Academy in Bulgaria, where their deputy sports minister even mentioned me in his speech on the state of sport in the country.”

Broom’s efforts have been beneficial. He got an email from contacts in Hungary thanking him for spreading the cricketing word and saying they might be taking on Serbia next year in an inaugural match between the countries. Of all the places he has been the Serbians seem to have made the most lasting impression. “Vladimir Nincovic and his friend Hari were rugby league players before deciding they wanted something a bit more sedate,” he says. “Somehow they found out about cricket and are now connoisseurs of the game. They don’t know some of its intricacies yet but have hundreds of cricket DVDs and even know about Sir Garfield Sobers and Jim Laker.

“I went to Vladimir’s house and he had me teaching him how to bowl legspin on his kitchen floor for half an hour. The ex-pats teach the locals but don’t take over, which is the right way. A local – Slobodan – opened the bowling and Vladimir is determined that the team will be predominantly local and that the game develops at grass roots. They played hard too. There was one guy, Nikola – he called himself Johnny – who was the biggest sledger I have ever come across, although I couldn’t understand what he was sledging me because it was in Serbian. And the fort is an incredibly romantic place to play.”

Broom’s game in Istanbul has attracted a mix of nationalities and skill levels – several Pakistani ex-pats who play for the Turkish national side are joined by four Englishmen, three Australian tourists, two Frenchmen who have just completed a tandem ride from Paris to Istanbul and a handful of interested Turks. Laughter rings around the Hagia Sophia, not least when Broom is bowled first ball by one that takes a treacherous bounce off the crazy paving to strike the giant orange bin passing as a wicket. But it will not all be fun and games in big cities.

From Istanbul Broom heads down into Syria, then via Jordan and Egypt into the deserts of Sudan. “Sudan daunts me the most,” he says. “The desert will be tough. A friend emailed me to warn about the long stretches with no people or water. I’ve also heard very bad reports about stone-throwing children in Ethiopia and there will be few tarmac roads there. But I know people who have done it before and, if I wasn’t going anywhere difficult, it wouldn’t be much of an adventure.”

From Ethiopia it is down to Kenya, where he will catch a boat to Mumbai. He is due in India for the IPL (running from mid-March to late April), where he is hoping for some good, competitive games. Bangladesh, Myanmar (visa and permission to cycle permitting), Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia complete the card before another boat takes him into Darwin and the home leg to Brisbane.

That is a long way to go over the next 11 months. “It is very daunting if you look too far ahead. One day, about six weeks in, I was just cycling along and I thought ahead and I couldn’t really control myself – I just burst out crying, partly because there is such a long way to go but also because I let myself imagine the sense of achievement on reaching Brisbane. All in all, though, it’s incredibly fulfilling. To do a 140km day in the rain with the last four hours in the dark isn’t fun but you arrive seriously satisfied. It feels pretty stupid sometimes but it’s worth it for the feeling at the end of the day.”

Broom’s efforts are more remarkable for his lack of training. He picked up his bike three days before he departed, having never ridden a touring bike.

“I rode it down the path outside my house and couldn’t believe how heavy and difficult to control the bike was,” he says. “That was strange, and alarming. But 11 countries later I’m still going.”

Sam Collins is editor of thewisdencricketer.com

You can follow Oli Broom’s progress on the way to Brisbane and make donations to his chosen charities at www.cyclingtotheashes.com and follow him on Twitter @cyclingtoashes

He will also be blogging on www.thewisdencricketer.com

Oli’s trip is being sponsored by Betfair and Mongoose

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