Where would modern T20 be without fire? It's made its way into team names - Welsh Fire, Brisbane Heat, Perth Scorchers - and tournaments, it's a mandatory part of matches in the IPL and the Hundred, and where fireworks were earlier reserved for wins in World Cups, they are now merely the opening act before a game. Take the BBL, for instance, that sees more pyrotechnics on the regular than a Rammstein concert.
Though cricketers have been playing with fire for decades now, case in point Geoffrey Williams, captain and opening batter of Ynysgerwn Cricket Club in Wales, who defied death every day on his lunch break.
Speaking of World Cups, fire is an inseparable part of the experience in the subcontinent. First, before the tournament...
Sometimes during the tournament itself...
And it's pencilled into the schedule post the tournament as well.
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When Paul Collingwood was handed the Olympic torch during a relay in 2012, he thought it would be a great time to make a case for cricket at the Olympics
A surprising number of cricket matches have been stopped and fans made to evacuate because cricketers have triggered the fire alarm... by burning toast. In 2017 a Shield match in Brisbane had to be stopped after Nathan Lyon forgot a slice in his toaster. In 2019, it happened again in Perth but the arsonist players weren't named. Later the same year, Delissa Kimmince had a toastie misadventure that briefly interrupted a match against Sri Lanka in Brisbane. The lesson here? Take away the cricketers' bread. Let them eat cake.
In 2019-20 Australia was ravaged by bushfires in one of the worst fire seasons on record in the country. Though a seasonal event, it had never been as catastrophic as it was that year. Cricket stepped into the breach to help, with a number of bushfire relief charity matches.
But there have been times when bushfire season was no reason to cancel a game.
Apparently England have always been big on bonding sessions around campfires. They did it on safari in 2003 in South Africa, and again at a pre-Ashes camp in Nuremberg in Germany that included strenuous physical and mental tasks, like who could make the most smores and who'd survive the ninth singalong of "Wonderwall".
