What If Hollywood Played Cricket?

These are heady days for cricket. England's triumph in the Ashes was overseen by increasingly high-end celebrity cognoscenti, with both Lily Allen and Russell Crowe putting in appearances at the BBC's Test Match Special commentary box. Plus, this week Sam Mendes announced that he will be adapting Joseph O'Neill's novel Netherland, a story about cricketing expats in New York, into a major film. A century after its first great golden age, the most sedentary, self-deprecating and immovably weather-bound of summer sports is about to go Hollywood. But does cricket really have a big-screen future? And if so, what kind of scripts can we expect to see punted about in the next few months?

Stumped!

Classic fish-out-of-water caper starring Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy in an unconvincing fat suit and Eddie Murphy pretending to be a woman by speaking in a shrill voice. Follow the hilarious fortunes of the England Lions squad on its winter tour: getting lost at the airport in Sri Lanka, posing awkwardly with an elephant in Lahore and sitting in the hotel in Chittagong watching DVDs, eating baked beans and complaining that the bread won't toast. Stars Eddie Murphy as dysentery-ridden medium-fast bowler Rory Cake-Bread and Eddie Murphy as lots of other people too, many in fat suits.

The Deckchair Effect

Chilling M Night Shyamalan supernatural drama based around a series of unusual events on a drizzly May afternoon watching Sussex bat out a slow four-day draw. A sausage roll goes missing. One of the members can't find his hat. And there's some confusion over the bus times into Hove. Stars Zooey Deschanel as a mysterious lady reading the Daily Telegraph in a cagoule.

The Ball Tamperer

Jason Statham stars as a bicep-rippling rogue opening bowler who isn't afraid to bend the rules. Mainly by rubbing a little hair oil into the surface of the ball in order to generate additional swing through the air. He rolls over the bonnet of his sponsored Peugeot. He crouches behind the Cornish pasty van next to the pavilion. He gets told off by the umpire. He says sorry.

Legbreakz and Googliez

Sizzling teen urban dance-off based in the steamy underworld of the LV County Championship Division Two. Rival satchel-toting middle-aged spectator gangs engage in high-kicking, arthritic minor disagreements over their favored lunchtime sandwich filling at a series of semi-deserted County out-grounds. Features the music of 50 Cent – and faint strains of Handel and the Jeremy Vine show heard over a battered transistor radio headset.