Compton cricket club hails from one of the most deprived areas of Los Angeles and counts ex-gang members and even officers from the LAPD among its ranks. Which makes it one of the most extraordinary teams in the sport of gentlemen

'Facing the West Indian quick bowlers of yesteryear, the likes of Malcolm Marshall or Mikey Holding, was a stroll when compared to standing in a field in the middle of Compton. However, there are similarities. There is the realisation that you may get hurt, battered or simply that the experience may cost you your life."

These are the words of Paul Smith, global ambassador for the Compton cricket club; a diverse collection of characters from one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the United States. Northumberland-born Smith is widely thought of as one of the best English players not to have represented his country at the sport. In the 90s, his ability to bowl at high speed and take wickets at crucial times, and a propensity to take an attack apart with his bat, was well-known within the game, as his Warwickshire side conquered on all fronts. However, he was unceremoniously dumped after admitting using class-A drugs. Since this ban, he has used his experience to enlighten youth at risk by becoming part of a fully rounded team in Los Angeles, the drive-by capital of the US; a team that incorporates locals, police officers and those who fell from the top of their beloved sport.

The story of the Compton cricket club is a fascinating tale, and one the club hopes to tell soon through a book and a film. The story started when British film producer Katy Haber moved to Los Angeles in the early 70s to work with Sam Peckinpah. Haber counts Straw Dogs with Peckinpah and Blade Runner with Ridley Scott among her numerous production credits. In 1995, she founded the Compton cricket club's forerunners, the LA Krickets, with her friend Ted Hayes. The Krickets were a group of homeless young men, skirting the edges of crime and all that crime brings. Hayes is a famed LA social activist who started the Dome Village homeless community in the city's downtown core, and whose primary address at one point was Marvin Gaye's back garden.

The ingredients of Straw Dogs' violence, Blade Runner's dystopian LA, Haye's Dome Village and Gaye's redemptive message of love and peace amid a hail of ultra-violence perhaps created the perfect foundation for the establishing in 1996 of the Compton cricket club itself. Or, as they are now affectionately known, the Homies and the Popz. Haber and Hayes's aim was to give the local youth an alternative to crime that incorporated good manners and a team ethic while striving to improve individually. The club has since toured England several times, even taking afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace. Earlier this year, they returned from Australia, where they strove to break down barriers by again using cricket as a weapon of decency. They played many matches, including one against the descendants of the famous Johnny Mullagh Aboriginal team, which toured England in 1868, even pre-dating the Ashes. The Homies' fans and friends include many of the great and good of the game, and theirs is a brief but increasingly rich history. However, one team member could not travel to Australia because he was still on parole; another because he became the victim of a drive-by shooting.

Their tale seemed to take on a life of its own this summer, when a tour to England had been planned. A wonderfully unlikely schedule proposed games at venues ranging from Lord's to the prisons around Birmingham. Matches were also booked at the picturesque Hambledon ground, with its rich cricketing history, but also in inner-city Handsworth, with a memorial game lined up for 11 September. The Homies' touring squad was to include four officers from the Los Angeles police department counter terrorism and special operations bureau, who have trained and collaborated with the team. The tour also had the full support and backing of the Birmingham Multi-Agency Gang Unit, which is made up of specialist police officers and the probation services.

The plan had been to interact with the local youth, both inside and outside the high walls of the juvenile detention centres, to the furtherance of more positive lifestyles and better relationships between the police and these young offenders. However, Haber was unsuccessful in raising sponsorship in the US. Smith even wrote to David Cameron seeking financial assistance but to no avail.

Smith, who works for the Prince's Trust in targeting excluded youth, sees many parallels between Soweto and Cape Flats in South Africa (where he had worked previously with the late Bob Woolmer, then that country's coach), Compton and, now sadly, following the riots, England.

"Eighty per cent of the youth who go through our police-assisted programmes then enter employment or education," says Smith. "These stories, and those of the LAPD and Compton CC members who would have toured, would certainly have struck a chord with these disillusioned, disenfranchised English kids. Our primary goal is not to find a future world's best, such as a Brian Lara or a Sachin Tendulkar. That would be a wonderful by-product. The aim is a broader one where the etiquette of cricket spills over the boundary rope and into people's lives, gelling communities where gangs otherwise rule," he says. "All credit to the police in Birmingham and LA and the Compton CC, who had recognised this and anticipated the potential problems. It's staggering that the $70,000 we needed for the tour is less than the amount it costs to house a young offender for a year."

The Homies' are now looking to the future and their aim is to tour England next summer, when the International Olympic Committee might well announce that cricket will be included in the 2020 games.

Meanwhile, Haber has been delighted by a new trend in LA. "We are now taking players away from baseball. We aim to field the first all-American-born cricket team. Efrain Flores, a local baseball hopeful, is one such example, and his throwing arm is devastating. We are now coaching him, in an attempt to erase his muscle memory and to streamline his bowling action into a legal one."

And which glory-seeking, peacock-proud youth does not want to stand in the middle for hours and be admired? Yes, baseball's glory can peak, but it is all too brief. Furthermore, with the advent of a temporary, moveable, plastic (yet surprisingly true) wicket, a cricket field is now far easier (and therefore cheaper) to create.

It's a bizarre world where the LAPD is playing cricket to speak with the would-be, could-be, or erstwhile gangster. Similarly, the New York police department has teams that have joined leagues in an attempt to reach out to foster better relationships with the Pakistani community and to speak to and even befriend young men in and around mosques.

The first-ever international cricket match was played in 1844 between Canada and the US. The first Canadian prime minister, Sir John A Macdonald, even declared it to be his country's national sport. The present sees an almost surreal development of the most genteel of sports; chess on grass. The future truth might yet prove to be far stranger yet than any fiction.