By IANS,
London : British playwright and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, who died this week, said in his last interview he thought cricket was better than sex.
“I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that god created on earth – certainly greater than sex, although sex isn’t too bad either,” he said in the interview, published by the Guardian newspaper Saturday.
Cricket was the subject of the interview, given to the Guardian in October amid failing health. Pinter, one of the greatest post-War playwrights, died Thursday at the age of 78.
What attracted the famous playwright to cricket was the game’s inherent drama – the game within the game.
“Drama happens in big cricket matches. But also in small cricket matches.
“When we play, my club, each thing that happens is dramatic: the gasps that follow a miss at slip, the anger of an lbw decision that is turned down. It is the same thing wherever you play, really.”
Pinter was captain of a wandering cricket club from London called the Gaieties and had played the game from childhood. His house was full of cricket memorabilia, including a framed copy of W.G. Grace’s autograph.
Pinter, a lifelong admirer of great England batsman Len Hutton, said: “cricket, the whole thing, playing, watching, being part of the Gaieties, has been a central feature of my life.”