It’s reckoned about 8,000 Australians play croquet these days. Partly thanks to the 30-year old Australian Croquet Association ACA, which launched its new ACA Academy in 2020, is more and more becoming an all-ages sport. Many youngsters, indeed, will be practising hard for the Under-21 Golf Croquet World Championship, scheduled for 8-12 February 2023 at New Zealand’s Mount Maunganui. This is the time, indeed, for Asia Pacific to show it can get through those hoops.

Chewton Glen Hampshire, 90 minutes’ south-west of London, is the ultimate English country house hotel surrounded by forest, in this case, The New Forest, renowned for its wild ponies and centuries of history. It was proclaimed a royal forest, indeed, by William the Conqueror and the rights of common pasture exist today, in a total 28,924-hectare area that remains a habitat for many rare animals and birds.