Angus Bell

From psychics to Soviets, this Montreal-based Scotsman experienced a thing or two during his trip to Eastern Europe resulting in his hilarious book on cricket, Batting on the Bosphorus. We heard some of the bizarre details.

How did you come up with the idea for this book?

It all started at a psychic exposition in Old Montreal, when a shaman claiming to be channeling messages from my great uncle, said ‘I don’t know if you’re aware, but you’re going to lose your job, leave the country and put together a book or a movie.’ The psychic’s predictions started to come true. My internship with the Montreal mafia ended, I decided to go back to Scotland, and then one day the words ‘cricket’ and ‘Ukraine’ popped into my head. Google returned many pages about insects in the Crimea, but among them was a site about a cricket league at the Odessa State Medical University. A psychic channeling messages about the future I could sort of grasp, but a cricket league at the Odessa State Medical University? That was strange, and merited investigation.

What exactly is cricket?

“Cricket is basically baseball on valium,” said Robin Williams. I’d say it’s more like tai chi on speed, but with weapons. It’s baseball meets the Hokey Pokey. Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world. One billion Indians can’t be wrong. It was the first national sport of Canada and the US.

Where were some of the most unusual places you played?

I played Estonia - the world’s worst international cricket team - on ice inside a former Soviet missile factory. Their captain had played cricket in a world record 128 countries and territories. It became his life’s mission after watching Groundhog Day. In Croatia, their field was a helicopter landing pad in an old military base, surrounded by an old minefield. The batting cage was a dock on the Adriatic, with fishermen repairing boats between stopping balls going in the Adriatic.

Were you ever in any danger during the trip?

I witnessed a drug smuggling operation and subsequent bust on the Midnight Express to Istanbul. I had to make an emergency trip to the Romanian dentist, whose English didn’t include the word anesthetic. Her chair was like a medieval instrument of torture, held together by rope. I also had to hold up a bank in Belarus for 70 cents to get out of the country.

What was the highlight of the trip?

The highlight was meeting the Istanbul cricket captain, Mr Mubashir Khan. We risked arrest to get on the bridge over the Bosphorus strait, where he bowled at me, and I smacked him from Europe into Asia. He was the first man to be hit between continents. Mr Mubashir said baseball bats are a big seller in Istanbul, but nobody plays. They’re only for beating people. He was thinking of importing cricket bats to do the same job.