Millie Week 40, Mon 10 - Sat 15 June 1991

When I was a kid I used to read Peanuts religiously. It all made sense to me, apart from one thing. What was that game that involved standing on semicircles in big hats and one oversized glove that Charlie Brown was no good at? I'd never come across it before. What was a shortstop (and do dogs normally play in that position)? What was the significance of sliding? How does one load a base? It was totally baffling.

So, once I had my own cartoon strip, handled in the States by King Features, I decided to have my revenge, with this month-long storyline about cricket, specifically written to confuse Americans.

However, it went down very well in my other main market, India and Pakistan. Yes, Millie was seen in the sub continent at the time. To be honest it was pirated, along with all the other strips in the Daily Mirror. I never saw a penny of royalties from all the papers that printed smudgy versions of strips that had been run in the Mirror a few days before and then got photocopied and faxed to Bangalore or wherever. But I sort of felt flattered that someone would bother.

There's an irony behind that first strip. England hadn't been having a very good time of it that summer, but on the day that strip came out England won its first test match against the West Indies for about ten years. It's a frightening power I have there - I promise only to use it for good.

Wednesday's strip is based on personal experience. The First XI cricket pitch was considered to be sacred ground by some of the teachers in my school, even when it was a muddy patch of ground four months out of season in the middle of the winter. I still remember being shouted at for walking across this nondescript patch of grass in rugby boots during one interminable games afternoon. "ARE YOU SOME KIND OF IDIOT, PILCHER?". No, I'm not the one getting angry about using some waterlogged turf as a short cut to a rugby game I don't want to participate in. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

I have no idea what the apparatus in the first frame of strip four is called, but it's made out of curved wooden slats and is used in fielding practice, especially for those fielding close to the batsman. A ball gets thrown into the thing and the curves and slats randomises how it comes out again, so you need very quick reflexes to catch the ball as it whizzes out again.

Number 11 was my usual position in the batting order. It was a good place to be - if your team was winning you had little fear of having to bat, you could just sit on a grassy bank and watch the game progress very slowly. Of course, you still had to field for half the afternoon, but if you were in the outfield there was little chance of the ball every coming anywhere near you. Lucy from Peanuts was the model for my fielding style. I never caught a single ball in my entire school fielding career.

In the final strip Millie is facing Sammi in the nets - another bit of cricket training equipment, essentially a single wicket in a net box so bowlers and batters can practice without having to spend most of their time retrieving their balls from the far distance.