Tags: I see it this way! Heritage Shores Bridgville De E.W. Faircloth photography photographer fun game fitness exercise sports cricket Ewart Rouse author wicket sticky wicket sport bowler

 To most Americans, “cricket” is an insect that chirps in the night. To the British, it means something else – a national sport that bears some resemblance to baseball. It’s a game that is becoming increasingly popular in the United States with the influx of immigrants from England and her former colonies. One of those immigrants is my former Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. colleagues Ewart Rouse, who has written a series of cricket novels titled “Sticky Wicket.” The main character in the four novels is Frederick “Freddie” Watkins, the longtime manager of the Fernwood Cricket Club in southern New Jersey. After watching him go off every summer Sunday to the park to play the game, Watkins’ beloved wife Gina has had enough. A deeply religious woman, she gives him an ultimatum – choose cricket or choose to honor the Lord on Sundays. Watkins wants to save his marriage but the conflict couldn’t have come at a worse time. Local officials and local Little League and soccer clubs are trying to reclaim the field as “their field” and kick the immigrant cricket players to the curb permanently. Watkins makes a bargain: he’ll retire from the cricket club manager’s position if Gina lets him spend just one more season trying to save the team’s home field future. Now, the countdown for Watkins to solve his own “sticky wicket” begins. For Watkins, the fight tests his political, organizational, and negotiating savvy even as he tries to muster help from his disorganized teammates who are flamboyant, gutsy, obsessed, madcap, and diverse as the countries they hail from. Obviously, Watkins has the fight of his life ahead of him. Rouse describes his “Sticky Wicket” series of cricket books as “a rollicking comedy of manners, mishaps, and mistakes, as well as a dramatic exploration of cultural identity and the power and pressures of family and community ties when immigrants try to live the American dream while holding on to their pasts through cricket, the game of their youth. “It’s also a feel-good story about a clash of cultures, with immigrants facing and overcoming challenges to become part of the American mainstream. Ultimately, love prevails – the love of a longtime married couple.” For more information, you can visit his blog at http://watkinsatbat.blogspot.com/