Did you know that J.M Barrie, famous for writing Peter Pan, playing cricket (badly) and loved the game so much he founded a team called Allahakbarries, and recruited its players from the literary community. The peculiar team name come comes from a mistake. Barrie thought Allah akbar meant Heaven help us but in reality it means God is great.

The Allahakbarries will go down in literary history. H.G Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jerome K Jerome, G.K. Chesterton, A.A. Milne, P.G. Wodehouse , and A. E. W. Mason, who wrote The Four Feathers, and E.W. Hornung, who created the Raffles novels, all played for the team.

This remarkable celebrity team was celebrated in a slim book, privately published by Barrie in 1890, called Allahakbarries C.C. A revised edition appeared in 1899 and a reprint followed in 1950 which contained a forward by Don Bradman – Australia?s legendary batsman. The pre-1900 copies are extremely hard to find and much sought-after by rare book collectors. However, the 1950 reprints are relatively easy to find and also affordable.

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