Poles Never Play Cricket in Summer

When Angus Bell was a sprite growing up in the hills of rural Scotland, he had few friends with whom he could play the game he loved, the game that eventually obsessed him: cricket. He played when and where he could, followed the international game at a distance and dreamed of glory, assuming the fantasized identities of the Rocket Richards and Wayne Gretzkys of the sport.

During his early twenties, Bell carried his obsession to Montreal, where he bowled and batted on a makeshift pitch in the shadow of a chocolate factory owned by his girlfriend’s father.

By chance one night, he googled onto the fact that cricket was being played by a dedicated few in the grim and unlikely precincts of the old Soviet Union. At about the same time, a psychic advised him that a lot of travelling and the writing of a book lay in his future—and that from that point forward the ghost of a dead relative would be inspiring him to quirky and inexplicable endeavours.

“The...