Cricket may not be "the sport of kings", "the beautiful game" or even "the game they play in heaven" but it's still our national sport with millions of fans and associated revenue, so where are all the movies?
Other than the several dozen cricket-themed Bollywood films churned out every three months or so, you barely bother the scorer when scraping together a list of successful attempts to bring the lovely thwack of leather on willow to the big or small screen.
Back in the '80s, when mini-series were genuine television events, we had Bodyline; the classy Kennedy Miller production about the infamous 1932-33 Ashes series significant for the Poms' strategy of bumping the hosts back to the pavilion and launching the career of Hugo Weaving.

In 2012, there was the somewhat less-classy Howzat! Kerry Packer's War, a series about the schism in the game which brought about the limited-overs genre and significant for Lachy Hulme's full-blown mind and body method-acting meld into the titular media baron.
It's believed poor Lachy is still haunting the high-roller rooms of various international casinos, globs of silicone dripping from his face as he farts and belches and tips the penurious house staff enough to cover their meagre mortgages.
And talking of burping and farting, we shouldn't forget Eddie Perfect's inspired stage show Shane Warne: The Musical, an enterprise which has now, sadly, assumed a certain profundity.

Not counting when that maestro of self-merchandising, Don Bradman, played a (hairless-bare-chested) version of himself in 1936's The Flying Doctor or 2012's silly but commendable Backyard Ashes, that's pretty much it for cricketing creativity.
Granted, the game's apparent lack of inspiration may be due to the fact cricket can, for vast swathes of precious time, be lobotomisingly tedious, yet the same could be said of its American cousin, baseball.
"I never realised how boring this game is," a teetotal Homer said way back in season four of The Simpsons.

But unlike the Australians who have displayed a prudent cultural cringe when contemplating bringing their dull national pastime to the screen, the Yanks have exercised no such restraint and, from Friday, we get yet another baseball show, this one streaming on Amazon Prime.
A League of their Own is a serialised remake of the criminally underestimated 1992 big-screen dramedy about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
The real-life organisation stands as one of those deep historical veins of storytelling potential.

As America's men went off to war, its women were dragooned into an ersatz version of major league baseball founded in 1943 by chewing gum magnate Philip K. Wrigley. The AAGPBL was only ever intended to serve as a wartime diversion and marketplace-holding tool, it was never supposed to be a compelling forum of genuine skill and competition. But that's precisely what unfolded as exemplified by the league's most successful team, The Rockford Peaches.
As with Penny Marshall's 1992 film, the new A League of their Own is based on the formation of the Peaches and, in doing so, becomes an exploratory vehicle probing American social history; sexism, chauvinism and racism running rife.
There are few better examples of a successful Hollywood ensemble film than A League of their Own, its enviable stable of performers including Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell, Lori Petty, Tea Leoni and Tom Hanks.
Rather miraculously, Marshall was even able to draw solid acting from Madonna, something by 1992 most pop culture pundits were justifiably convinced was impossible.
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The streaming remake has co-creator/co-producer Abbi Jacobson (Broad City) taking the Davis-esque lead role (complete with preferences reconstituted for modern-day audiences) but it's also an ensemble product, including The Resort's Nick Offerman, who seems to have not slept since Parks and Recreation.
While the show's creation stirs obligatory debate about lazy Hollywood's habit of ripping off previous efforts, it must also prompt we in the Down Under dugout to ask ourselves where are all the shows about our own sports? (Apologies to the passionate members of the Australian Baseball League).
It's heartening to see Disney+ rolling out Fearless: The Inside Story of the AFLW later this month but surely we're gagging for some scripted love for our homegrown on-field pursuits?
I still get goosebumps when I watch Robert Redford explode those Buffalo stadium lights in the exquisite finale of The Natural, so just imagine the size of the goosebumps should they be in response to a meaty six being lofted into the towers of the MCG by a Boonie or an AB?
Or better yet, a Lanning; captain (now on break) of our all-conquering national women's cricket team?
Talk about a league of their own.