During 1911, two separate teams of intrepid explorers risked everything in an attempt to be the first party to reach the South Pole. One was led by Englishman Robert F. Scott, the other by a Norwegian, Roald Amundsen. While Scott’s team was hampered by a series of misfortunes, Amundsen’s team completed a relatively smooth and uneventful trek, arriving at the South Pole on December 14, 1911. Scott’s team overcame the odds to also reach their destination, but unfortunately they arrived over a month after Amundsen’s team on 17 January 1912 – Scott’s anguish captured in the famous words from his diary, “The worst has happened”.
One century later, a team of Brits will try to exact some manner of revenge for that defeat, by taking on a Norwegian team in a contest they are far more equipped to win – a cricket match!
As the centrepiece event, there will be a cricket match, played on ice, in the centre of the bustling metropolis of Oslo, the Norwegian capital. The match will take place on 17 January 2012 – a genuine centenary celebration of the arrival of Scott’s team at the South Pole.
As well as playing cricket, the Captain Scott team will take part in dog sledding and ski challenges in Oslo, as an echo
the events of a 100 years before…
The Captain Scott’s Invitational XI are possibly the world’s most famous amateur cricket team, thanks largely to them being the subject of three best-selling books, including the wildly popular and critically acclaimed “Penguins Stopped Play” by Harry Thompson. They are genuine favourites of the entertainment world, having in years gone by had names such as Hugh Grant, Ian Hislop, Nick Hancock, Iain Glen and Rory Bremner proudly wear the Scott’s XI cap.
The team was dreamed up in Oxford in the autumn of 1978, by Harry Thompson, Marcus Berkmann, Richard Corden and Terence Russoff. It was borne of Thompson and Berkmann’s frustration that despite being fervent cricket fans, they had not been allowed to play cricket at Highgate School (on the grounds that both had reached the age of ten without picking up a cricket bat, and there was no point in starting so late) or subsequently at Brasenose and Worcester Colleges, Oxford, because only the first XI were allowed to set foot on the hallowed turf of the college squares.