Your favorite cricket books which you recommend

[Tapioca]

You cannot convert me, SJS, and I don't expect to influence you either :smiley: He could get away with his stuff at the time. Wasn't he the only reporter present when Australians were beaten by Maclaren's team at Eastbourne in 1921 ? I remember reading (Can't remember the details but you must be familiar with it) Cardus writing about leaving a famous match early, assuming that it would end in a dull fashion, only to find that it had a great finish. He didn't want the folks the office to know that he had missed it, so looked at the scorecard , added masala and it became a much praised report. I don't seriously care if this happens in other fields (though people like Jason Blair make the headlines now and then) but it should not for cricket.

[Tapioca]

Well .. what really is the difference between what Jason Blair did and Cardus ? Blair's writing may been more impressive than that of his more honest colleagues.

[SJS50]

No I have not heard that story and thats what it may turn out to be for all you know. Cardus does not need your or my certification to decide his place in the cricket writer's hall of fame. Let me just give you some examples of what some of the game's most well known writers think of him. Arlott here does not deny, nor do I, Cardus's taking liberties to put words in the mouths of his characters or to make them larger than life but that does not stop him from allowing Cardus his place in the pantheon of cricket writers.

When he was sent to cover cricket for The Guardian, he contrived to write of the cricketers as romantic figures, rather more than life-sized. In doing so he created an entirely fresh attitude to the game; it was exactly that kind of hero-worship that possessed the average cricket watcher. Neville Cardus put exactly that point f view into language. He himself used to refer to his early cricket writings as his "greenery-yallery" period. Though his work later became more "hard" he nevertheless retained his early command of language and the feeling of those days.

There is no cricket writer in the world who does not owe something, if not almost everything, to the work of Neville Cardus.

Within a year publishers had recognised his outstanding talent and...by 1922 as perceptive a publisher as Grant Richards, put out his, A Cricketer's Book. At once and constantly he was imitated; but none of his imitators had the mastery of language he had acquired... He became, if not a cult, a major influence and.... Longman's in their "English Heritage Series - Collins in their "Britain in Pictures" turned to him as the literate authority on cricket.... It is easy to see that he created a mythology of cricket. The clearest example lies in his series of pieces on the clash between the fast bowler Ted McDonald of Lancashire and the graceful tall left handed Frank Woolley of Kent. There were, though, many cricketers whom he elevated to considerable heights in the minds of those who followed the game. Once he was chided for a 'quote' from Dick Tyldesley of Lancashire with the suggestion that Tyldesley would never have made such a statement. Cardus' response was simple and direct: That is exactly what he would have said if he had thought about it, because that was what he felt." Certainly, Cardus knew his Lancastrians, their reactions and their language. At first in his career he used to fight shy of the players through his natural modesty. . Soon, however, the barrier was broken Cricketers became proud to know him and happy to talk to him. . . Neville Cardus was a character deeply to be appreciated as both a man and a writer. Perhaps his 'slum' was an honest suburb; perhaps many of his characters appear of greater stature than they actually were. From start to finish, however, he was an enthusiast, not simply for music and cricket, but for life and people. It was, and for his readers remains, a matter of zest. There is no more vivid example of that than the manner in which his cricketers still come alive to readers too young to have ever watched them. He will be read with relish so long as people read.

- John Arlott writing in 1990

[SJS50]

His early cricket books gave him a reputation for fancy writing. The words lyrical, rhapsodical, were sometimes applied to him, usually by people who would not know a lyric from a rhapsody. These terms were still jostled about long after they had any possible justification, to Sir Neville's wry amusement. His mature prose was marked by clarity, balance, and indeed by restraint, though he never shrank from emotion or from beauty. Perhaps George Orwell was as good a writer of prose; or you may think of P. G. Wodehouse, or Bernard Darwin -- everyone has his own favourites -- but in this century it is not easy to think of many more in the same class. I remember clearly how I was introduced to Cardus's writing. It was in August, 1935. We were on holiday in Cornwall, at St. Ives, and my father was buying me a book, because of some small family service I had done. I said I would like a cricket book, and the choice narrowed to two: a book of reminiscences attributed to Hendren, I think it was, and Good Days, by Neville Cardus. I doubt if I had heard of Cardus then, because it was difficult to get The Manchester Guardian in the south of England. I was inclined to Hendren, but father was inclined to Cardus. Father won. We bought Good Days. Father read it before I did, though I have more than made up for that since. Most of us, perhaps half a dozen times in our lives, read books -- not always famous books -- which change us, change our thinking, books which open doors, revelatory books. That was one of mine. It was the essay on Emmott Robinson that did it -- do you remember it? -- when Cardus imagined that the Lord one day gathered together a heap of Yorkshire clay, and breathed into it, and said `Emmott Robinson, go on and bowl at the pavilion end for Yorkshire'. And then the next bit, about how Emmott's trousers were always on the point of falling down, and he would remember to grab them just in time. All cricket writers of the last half century have been influenced by Cardus, whether they admit it or not, whether they have wished to be or not, whether they have tried to copy him or tried to avoid copying him. He was not a model, any more than Macaulay, say, was a model for the aspiring historian. But just as Macaulay changed the course of the writing of history, Cardus changed the course of the writing of cricket. He shewed what could be done. He dignified and illuminated the craft. It was, it has occurred to me, fortunate for cricket that Bradman and Cardus existed at the same time: fortunate for them, too, since the best of batsmen was recorded by the best of critics. Each was worthy of the other. - Alan Gibson

[SJS50]

Even though 60 years have passed since its publication, I think it is safe to say that no book that deals with cricket has been more beautifully written than

Autobiography

.

That is not to say that Cardus was the best cricket writer

: he was too subjective, too free with his use of objective reality, for that.

But he was the best writer of those who have written about cricket.

- Scyld Berry

Nobody who has written about cricket has written finer English prose than Neville Cardus. In his Autobiography I don't believe there is a word or comma out of place. Australian Summer is beautifully written too, about the tour of that country in 1936-37 by England, or MCC as they were then called Cardus was not greatly interested in the play, in what bat and ball did. He was interested in Australia the country and its attractions and the great cricketers of his day and their effect upon him. He was lucky, too, in being able to write about what he wanted to write about. No editors telling him what subject matter and how many words. No television, with replays, to contradict his version of events. Cardus could be as impressionistic as he liked and made the most of it. The passage I always remember concerns the voyage out from England to Perth on the SS Orion. The party of cricketers and a few journalists reach the Cocos Islands on a windy morning, and two rowing boats come through the waves to pick up a barrel of food - quarterly rations for the few inhabitants. "And the last we saw of the little boats was their plungings and swayings as they returned to the island, with the men waving farewell in return; there was not a person on board the Orion who did not feel the emotion of the scene. 'It makes a lump come into your throat,' said William Voce of Nottinghamshire." The reader keeps wishing for more of the same, for more local colour rather than cricket. But Cardus knows what Dr Johnson did: if you want to bore the reader, put in everything. The England, or MCC, party journeyed from Perth to Adelaide by train, and Cardus devotes nothing more than a paragraph - but what a paragraph - about a cricket pitch made in the middle of the Nullarbor out of railway sleepers. It was a great series to write about: the only occasion still, I believe, when a team has come back from 0-2 down to win a five-Test series. Unfortunately it was not England. They ran out of petrol, and luck, while Don Bradman refuelled his tank. England's batsmen could not play legspin: some things haven't changed. Even Wally Hammond was completely tied up when Bill O'Reilly attacked his leg stump. Cardus was near to his inspired best when he wrote Australian Summer, and at his best when he returned to Australia during the Second World War and Autobiography followed.

A few have equalled his writing; none, in modern times, has surpassed

.

- Scyld Berry

[SJS50]

It is 30 years since Sir Neville Cardus left us and his reputation as the prince of sportswriters remains secure. Fly the flag for Ian Wooldridge and Frank Keating if you like (and, m'dear, so ravishing! so resplendent! I will), and cheer their successors like the brilliant Simon Barnes, but Cardus led the way. He invented sportswriting, as we understand it, and his work still holds up. For cricket-lovers (and scribes) it is pleasing that he belonged to us. He was `our Neville'. The fact that Cardus wrote for the Guardian may also perplex some modern readers. In his day the Manchester Guardian was a liberal provincial newspaper. Today, despite its many good qualities, it is the natural habitat of the self-hating Home Counties set. From the rich fare of Cardus (and Philip Hope-Wallace) to the bread-and-water asceticism of Polly Toynbee in one generation! Brothers and sisters, is this not progress? No is the simple answer. "The good work was ruined by Bradman, who is still not out 257," he wrote in 1938. "Several people were heard to say that without Bradman the Australians might not be so wonderful after all. Probably not; Hamlet without the Prince would not be so wonderful and the Grand Armée without Napoleon might not have been exactly the force it was." Or how about this? "A bat, indeed, can look an entirely different instrument in different hands. With Grace it was a rod of correction, for to him bad bowling was a deviation from moral order; Ranjitsinhji turned a bat into a wand, passing it before the eyes of the foe till they followed him in a trance along his processional way; George Hirst's bat looked like a stout cudgel belabouring all men not born in Yorkshire; [Charles] Macartney used his bat for our bedazzlement as Sergeant Troy used his blade for the bedazzlement of Bathsheba - it was a bat that seemed everywhere at once, yet nowhere specially." Nowadays many sportswriters employ wit. Some can even make you laugh. But Cardus got there before everybody else and managed to connect cricket to the world beyond the boundary, which is why he matters. The sad thing is, were he growing up today, he might be lost to the game altogether. "Cricket ... has developed a routine standardised efficiency at the expense of the personal touch," he wrote in 1970. "It is offering itself in one-day hit-or-miss scrambles in which winning or losing points or awards is the only appeal to the spectator." What, one wonders, would he make of the blink-and-miss-it nonsense called Twenty20, which - we are assured by the counties - represents the future of the domestic game? He certainly would not take to the compression of a Test series against Australia into seven weeks between late July and early September. This is no more than `industrial' cricket, in which quality takes second place to quantity. Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap! Cardus was familiar with a world in which Hedley Verity read Seven Pillars of Wisdom on the boat to Australia, "and [George] Duckworth danced each evening with a nice understanding of what, socially, he was doing". Remember that when the England players exchange those unnatural `high-fives' at the fall of every wicket this summer. We cannot - worst luck - turn back the clock. We have to live with what we have, and so much of the modern world is brutal, even in sport, which is supposed to offer relief. But we can from time to time recall a gentler world and those, like Cardus, who evoked it.

-Michael Henderson

[SJS50]

You cannot convert me, SJS, and I don't expect to influence you either :smiley: He could get away with his stuff at the time. Wasn't he the only reporter present when Australians were beaten by Maclaren's team at Eastbourne in 1921 ? I remember reading (Can't remember the details but you must be familiar with it) Cardus writing about leaving a famous match early, assuming that it would end in a dull fashion, only to find that it had a great finish. He didn't want the folks the office to know that he had missed it, so looked at the scorecard , added masala and it became a much praised report. I don't seriously care if this happens in other fields (though people like Jason Blair make the headlines now and then) but it should not for cricket.

Yes thst story is true. Do you know how the world came to know of it? Cardus wrote an entire chapter on it in his book Full Score calling the chapter Absent From Leeds South Africa were seven down in their second innings and just 24 ahead and tail-enders left to face Tate and company next morning. Assuming the match result to be a foregone conclusion, young Cardus decided not to go to the ground and instead go to London and spend a day in the country with the lady he was going with. To his horror he discovered from the evening papers that South African tail had staged a terrific recovery. As he tells us. . .

I was in a nice mess. What could I do? The Manchester Guardian would be waiting for my "on-the-spot" hot report. I had, of course, to dismiss milady; no dinner together that evening. I rushed to my club and consulted the tape-messages reporting the bare details of the sensational third day's play in the Test match at Leeds. From these useful details and statistics, I composed a column of 'eye witness' descriptive writing. I then consulted the Bradshaw railway guide, saw that a train from Leeds arrived at London at about 9 o'clock, so I timed myself dramatically to rush into the offices of the Manchester Guardian with my report, I reproduce it herewith.

And then he proceeds to put down the entire fabricated account of the day's play, entire 1300 odd words of it. So accurate did that account appear that the South African captain, H>G> Deanne congratulated Cardus during the Test match at Manchester a fortnight later for his accurate descriiption of Owen-Smith's hundred. Cardus goes on to inform us that he had in fact put in, tongue firmly in cheek, in that report a clear hint as to what had happened. He writes. . .

The reader will note that in the bogus report from Leeds, the operative sentence is,

"The South Africans kicked back from a position so hopeless that few of us even took the trouble to be present at Leeds until we scented the battle from afar."

I admire yet the audacity of that sentence. Still I do not produce my 'tour de force' of journalistic resourcefulness as an example to all young reporters. It is safest and wisest to be, if not exactly geographically on the spot, at any rate adjacent.

If you are citing this instance as an example to show that Cardus was in the habit of 'lying' in his accounts of the games he covered. I really do not know what to say. The man was so brutally honest that one of the first things the world came to know of him, from his mouth, was that he was the illegitimate child of a prostitute. The fact that this 'lying' you make such a song and dance about too is known to us because he chose to show us what, as a young reporter he used to do tells us something positive about Sir Neville rather than the contrary. The tongue in cheek and audacious insertion of that sentence in his report merely shows the sense of humour and the high spiritedness of a young Cardus. He was not always 90 years old you know.

[SJS50]

The English Game Published: 1948 Pages: 230 Author: Gerald Brodribb Publisher: Hollis and Carter Rating: 4.5 stars Anthologies, particularly good anthologies, serve one grand function - they put at your disposal great pieces of writing that you may not have even been aware existed. Even if you were aware of them, it would be a monumental task and, I daresay, a pretty expensive one to get them all. One is, therefore, always on the lookout for really good anthologies. Having said that, it is not often that one would rank an anthology as high as a great book. Thus no collection of essays to me, would have beaten one of Neville Cardus's classics like the Close of Play, or CLR James's Beyond A Boundary. However, in Gerald Brodribb's The English Game, one has to concede, one has finally come across the anthology to beat all anthologies and a majority of the top cricket books as well. What is it that makes it so special, you ask. Well, to start with, compiled in 1948, it has an assemblage of writers only old, older and older still. There is a certain style of writing that seems to have gone out which is so effective in invoking, through words, live images of green fields of the English countryside, of the "click of a latch on the ground's wooden gate" as a mother and daughter duo walks along carrying the tea-urn for the village team, treading carefully as "not being cricketers themselves, they would not dream of putting a foot on the grass". These maybe Cardus's words but a whole lot of the older writers were good at invoking similar imagery. However, that alone does not guarantee it the status of 'the anthology to beat all anthologies' that I wish to bestow upon it. It also brings to you some of the least known of cricket's myriad writers including those who just wrote a solitary page or two of cricket in their entire literary careers. Thus this is not an anthology where I can start ticking off the articles which are from books in my library and find that I have paid for less than half the book in real terms. Invariably there is material that could be completely unknown even to those who pride themselves in their knowledge of the game's written word. This makes the book so priceless. Do I hear, old writers and writing from sources hitherto undiscovered by yours truly do not a great anthology make. Yes, that's true. So in Gerald Brodribb we have a compiler who must rank amongst one of the game's premier historians and writers. Almost every one of his dozen odd cricket books is a masterpiece. If one were to select a writer other than the game's prolific master writers like Cardus and Thomson, I would rank Gerald Brodribb very high in any shortlist. His selection is peerless. It's not just a collection of cricket essays, stories and poetry but also small odds and ends that are so charmingly quaint. There is, for example, the title page of the first ever issue (1864) of Wisden which starts with -

THE CRICKETER'S ALMANACK for the Year 1864 being Bissextile or Leap Year and the 28th of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria

and ends by telling us that the book may "be had from all respectable Booksellers in the United Kingdom." Then there are the two lines of "Some Good Advice" from "C.A.", "an old but not unsophisticated bowler" to his captain on the eve of a match against Clarke's All England Eleven. It is well worth repeating.

Dear John, So I am to bowl for your people against them Englanders. You wants to win, don't you now? Then don't be so stupid as to roll your ground. Yours, C.A.

It is woven in a thread that makes it worthwhile to read the book from start to finish although, I must hasten to add, you can read it an essay at a time at random as you can with most anthologies. But this one is so beautifully woven together that for a first reading, it would be better to read from beginning to end like a regular book. On top of it, the selections are such, that if you weren't told, you may not realize that the authors are different, for most of the articles that are preceding or succeeding each other seem to be from the same pen. Finally, if there is one book that I would recommend every cricket lover to buy and read again and again from here and there, one page now, one another time, and love every minute of it, then this is it. It is not just essential reading, it's an essential buy. For here is a book that you will love to read and re-read and re-read. It is an essential 'collector's item'. I am currently reading it the umpteenth time and having the time of my life. With my dogs at my feet, the Bombay monsoon's incessant chatter on my windowpane, a chilled beer at my side, The English Summer is almost the perfect book for me to be reading. Yes I said 'almost' for there is always a small Cardus classic waiting on the shelf to be picked up. The rating - four and a half stars, and that too because I don't think I want to give a five star rating to a book, unless I know there are no more books left for me to read.

[Tapioca]

If you are citing this instance as an example to show that Cardus was in the habit of 'lying' in his accounts of the games he covered. I really do not know what to say.

I had framed a reply in my head but did not want to post because the things were getting too hot :smiley: But I read every word that you posted almost as soon as you posted them. Don't have the same enthusiasm to frame it again. But briefly, the points would have been like (a) that my whole point was writing beautifully about Richardson would (IMO only) mean nothing if he did not even run (Could/did he do the same with his music reviews too ?!) making up which is what he often does (b) We can say that by concentrating on *whether* Richardson ran, I am missing the whole point and the beauty of the writing. But reading interests are a personal thing. I love Rajnikanth movies; my sister who is too much of a realist brushes them off as nonsense. It is somewhat that sort of difference in the matter of Cardus too. © Thanks for Leeds 1929. But writing 40 years after the event, when it could have no impact of his career, hardly implies that he is being honest. If anything, it sounds as if he is trying to show how smart he was. If he wrote it at a point of time when it could have had an impact (say in 1929 or 1930) it would be different. This is my last post on the subject. Don't want to receive any more scolding from you :winky: I would rather concede the argument without changing the opinion on the subject. Agree completely with your assessment of Brodribb. He is one of my favourite writers. I have English Game but still haven't read it, but have read Hit For Six, Next Man In and The Lost Art, and The Croucher is in the waiting list.

[Tapioca]

Of the few articles written available online by Brodribb Thornton's greatest hit is one. This massive hit which went over 160 yards was made by CI Thornton in 1876. Apart from passing references, little solid information was known about it when Brodribb researched about it nearly 100 years later. The thoroughness and hardwork involved in tracking down the details of something as narrow as this is typical of his works.

[SJS50]

Ranji : The Strange Genius of Ranjitsinhji By Simon Wilde (1990)

When I buy, what I think, is a really good book; I want it to be a ‘hardcover’. Paperbacks are for reading on a flight or in the toilet and then giving away to a nephew or a friend and then forget to take it back. Alternatively, they can be conveniently put in the guest bedroom toilet. Here is a book I do not want to give away or put anywhere but in my study. Unfortunately, it is today available only as a paperback. There was, I understand, a hardback version in 1990 but now its impossible to find a copy. This is my first big issue with Simon Wilde’s biography of Ranji. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I have any other issues with it. Tony Lewis’s claim on the book's back-cover, calling it “riveting stuff†is totally apt. Here is a cricket book, which is very difficult to put down. I have read all the major works on Ranji and both his “Jubilee Book of Cricket†and “With Stoddart’s Team In Australiaâ€. Yet, here was another biography of the man, written almost a century after the first one and it held my attention so completely from the moment I read the first chapter till I had gone through its 250 odd pages.. Actually in those 250 pages, it is really two books in one. There is the book that deals with Ranji the cricketer and does a pretty good job of it but this is something that has been done before and some of it by those who saw him in flesh and blood lending a greater authenticity to those accounts. I am never very comfortable with accounts of the cricketing skills expounded by writers, howsoever great as wielders of the pen, if the accounts are second third or fourth hand as they often are. So this ‘first book’ within the book, doesn’t do a great deal for me, although it Wilde does a more than decent job of it. It’s the second book in the life-story of the cricketer ‘prince’ that one finds so very absorbing, compelling, sometimes stunning and mostly shocking. David Frith wasn’t exaggerating when he wrote in the Wisden Cricket Monthly that “There will be polite coughing and embarrassed shuffling of feet as the reality of the book drifts down the cricketing corridors of Hove and Melbourne.†If anything he was gently preparing the unsuspecting reader for the startling experience of the skeletons tumbling out in quick succession from rickety old cupboards and the stink of stuff being brought out from under faded carpets where older writers seem to have swept it more by design and sometimes by laziness. Through meticulous research, Wilde thoroughly exposes the works, particularly of Percy Standing (Ranjitsinhji Prince of Cricket – 1903), Charles Kincaid (The Land of Ranji and Duleep - 1931) and Roland Wild (The biography of Colonel His Highness Shri Sir Ranjeet Sinhji – 1934), who are shown as sycophants at best and purveyors of half-truths and complete fabrications at worst. The latter day biography by Alan Ross (Ranji : Prince of Cricketers - 1983) is guilty in this regard of accepting the works of the earlier writers as fact without trying to cross-verify as Wilde himself has done with such startling results. After the first chapter where you see Ranji with the bat as his paint brush or magic wand, depending upon whether you consider him a mere artist or an Oriental conjurer, Wilde plunges head-on into the palace intrigues and the political skullduggery of a small princely state in Kathiawar. What you learn in that amazing second chapter of the book has you hooked to the story and you cant wait for more of the same to be unraveled. Chapters on Ranji’s cricket in England that follow are interspersed with the story of his naked personal ambition, his personality traits, his character, his human frailties and the financial mess into which he almost compulsively pushed himself all his life. You come to understand his constant need for acceptance by the British (an inferiority complex without a shred of doubt), his use of his cricketing accomplishments to network himself into a sphere of influence which he then tries to use to achieve his political objectives back home in India. Its not as if Wilde is unrelentingly critical of Ranji because he is unreserved in his praise of his cricketing skills. Ranji, the legendary cricketer, comes out of it with his awesome reputation completely intact – in fact enhanced in my opinion. Although Wilde does deal bluntly with some of the myths that have been built around a few of Ranji’s achievements, which, frankly, his cricketing legacy could do without and at no adverse impact to it. His cricketing feats were truly awesome in themselves and need no fabricated ‘props’ like the story of three separate centuries on a single day shown to be completely false. Ranji the cricketer comes out of this book standing in the bright sunshine of the deserts of the Rann of Kutch. It is Ranjitsinhji the man who was never the prince he led everyone to believe he was, the ‘son-who-wasn’t’ since he was never adopted by the former Jamsaheb Vibhaji, the ‘rich’ Indian ‘prince’ who borrowed money left right and centre with apparently no means or any apparent concern for having to return it, the pupil who borrowed the sum of thirty pounds from his mentor (who did more for him than probably anyone else) and then ignored the entreaties of the latter’s widow to let he have the money when she needed it, who is shown in very murky light. This shows up our 'hero' in darker hues as an unappetising version of a cricketer Jekyll and ‘Prince’ Hyde. It is this personal aspect of the man and those who wrote about him, taking extraordinary liberties with their obligations as responsible scribes and chroniclers of cricket’s history, that Wilde’s book shows up in very negative light indeed. Surprisingly, however, in doing so, he manages to enhance the magic of Ranji’s incomparable genius on the cricket fields of England and of the fascination that his life and times continue to hold for the cricket lovers around the world. Riveting stuff indeed.

[b555]

Good reader of the game- Eleven recommended cricket books

On Top Down Under Ray Robinson's collection of essays about Australia's Test captains has been a favourite of mine ever since it arrived, neatly wrapped, in an exciting package from my Dad in Australia soon after publication in 1975. Each chapter contains enough factoids to keep you going for a week - how dentist Monty Noble, for example, arrived home from one Ashes tour with a German-made machine for shaping readymade false teeth - plus crisp writing, like this description of Ian Craig, during a bad patch in England: "His average was retreating as quickly as his hairline." Robinson's book was updated a few years ago by Gideon Haigh, just about the only modern writer capable of matching him fact for entertaining fact. The Tests of 1930 Early tour books tended to be more travelogue than Test report - not surprising perhaps when crossing South Africa meant a stagecoach or rickety train - and are sometimes (like the journeys they describe) rather hard going. But Percy Fender, the innovative Surrey captain who never got a chance to lead England, shook up the genre - and not just because he usually chose odd titles, such as The Turn of the Wheel (1928-29 Ashes tour) or Kissing the Rod (1934). My favourite, probably because it covers Don Bradman's triumphant first trip to England, is his more prosaically titled 1930 tour account. Fender's reports were among the first to try to explain what was happening on the field, and why: his books also used innovative statistics - so we discover that, of Bradman's record 974 runs in that series, 238 of them came off 461 balls from Maurice Tate (who did at least get him out three times). Fender had been one of those who had thought the Don would struggle in England, but was forced to admit afterwards that "Bradman as a batsman is a mechanical genius". It Never Rains ... Peter Roebuck's sudden death late last year sent me scurrying to the shelves to revisit some of his writings. Probably his best book is an account of Somerset's 1983 county season, an up-and-down affair. During a break he reflects on his fortunes so far: "It has been a surprising season for Roebuck. He has scored most of his runs with shots he decided to cut out in April." He spent much of the season as the warm-up act for Viv Richards and Ian Botham. Often they tried to out-hit each other, but occasionally they both came off together: against Leicestershire "Richards finished with 214 and Botham 154, both making it all appear as if it were an afternoon tea party. I'm sure they edge the ball as often as I do, it's just that with them the slip fielder is at deep long-off." Snippets like that, and a lot more introspection besides, make this arguably the best season's diary of them all. No Coward Soul I knew that Yorkshire's Bob Appleyard was a remarkable bowler, even if he did have a brief international career (just nine Tests). But I didn't realise quite how remarkable he was until I read his 2003 biography, written by Stephen Chalke, after Derek Hodgson did the early groundwork. Appleyard was lucky to be alive, let alone playing cricket: he'd lost a lung (and a season and a half of county cricket) after contracting tuberculosis in the 1950s. And if facing the Aussies wasn't bad enough, after finishing with cricket, Appleyard worked for Robert Maxwell. Eventually he fell foul of him and was sacked. With typical Yorkshire grit, Appleyard sued for wrongful dismissal... and won. No Coward Soul I knew that Yorkshire's Bob Appleyard was a remarkable bowler, even if he did have a brief international career (just nine Tests). But I didn't realise quite how remarkable he was until I read his 2003 biography, written by Stephen Chalke, after Derek Hodgson did the early groundwork. Appleyard was lucky to be alive, let alone playing cricket: he'd lost a lung (and a season and a half of county cricket) after contracting tuberculosis in the 1950s. And if facing the Aussies wasn't bad enough, after finishing with cricket, Appleyard worked for Robert Maxwell. Eventually he fell foul of him and was sacked. With typical Yorkshire grit, Appleyard sued for wrongful dismissal... and won. The Art of Captaincy After retiring from playing, the former England captain Mike Brearley produced an absorbing treatise on leadership in 1985, stuffed with enough insights to turn anyone into a better skipper, although whether they'd be game to post a helmet at short midwicket to a left-arm spinner, as Brearley once did (I was there!), is unlikely. It's a great read. But isn't it time Brears presented us with an autobiography of the man Rodney Hogg said "has a degree in people"? Pageant of Cricket My first editor David Frith has produced many enviable books, from his biography of the 19th-century England captain Drewy Stoddart to the last word on Bodyline, via several tour books and a much-quoted history of cricketers who committed suicide (foreword, chillingly, by Peter Roebuck). But the biggest project was his weighty 1987 pictorial history, with more than 2000 illustrations - many of them from his own massive collection - in nearly 700 pages. If your coffee table is sturdy enough, try to find a copy. Cricket Crisis Talking of Bodyline, if you want to find out what the fuss was all about then the best contemporary account (well, reasonably contemporary: it wasn't published until 1946) came from Jack Fingleton, who was 24 when he opened in that fractious 1932-33 series. He later became an acclaimed journalist, and this book shows why. In the second Test, he wrote, "Larwood bowled a short ball to me. I walked further down than where the ball pitched and ostentatiously patted the wicket. I intended Larwood to infer that if he pitched much shorter he would be in danger of hitting his toes ... I was then very young." Fingo admits that some of his team-mates thought, "with some logic, that Larwood was dangerous enough without being baited". And the payoff? Larwood dismissed him for a pair in the next Test, and Fingleton lost his place for a while. Mystery Spinner Jack Iverson, a spinner with a freak grip on the ball (not unlike Ajantha Mendis's today), made a fleeting appearance on the international scene, playing only in the 1950-51 Ashes series ... but doing much to win it for Australia (21 wickets at 15). He couldn't bat, and wasn't much of a fielder: Gideon Haigh suggested, in this 1999 biography, that Iverson might well have been the worst all-round cricketer ever to play a Test match. But he could bowl, and this painstakingly researched story of where "Big Jake" came from - and where he went after that one shooting-star series - makes a surprisingly good read in a book that weighs in at over 350 pages. A Cricket Odyssey In 1987-88 England went to the World Cup (where they should have beaten Australia in the final in Calcutta), moved on to Pakistan, where they ran into Javed Miandad and Shakoor Rana (and Abdul Qadir, who took 9 for 56 in the decisive first Test), nipped to Australia for the one-off Bicentennial Test, and ended up with a forgettable series in New Zealand. Luckily for us, Scyld Berry was there throughout to make sense of the travels - and the controversy. He's got a soft spot for the subcontinent, and it shows through with his trips off the beaten track in Pakistan to meet up with Hanif Mohammad (and the ground where he made his 499), Qadir at home in Lahore, and even the cricket-loving spiritual leader the Pir of Pagaro. Sir Donald Bradman Among a sagging shelf of books about the Don, Irving Rosenwater's chunky 1978 tome is the biggest - and probably the best, if you want a factual account of the great batsman's life. Re-reading sections still leaves one amazed at Bradman's relentless ability to produce one big score after another. Rosenwater's writing is not flowery, but it does have the occasional flash of humour, as in describing Bradman's three-over century in an up-country game: he was confronted by a bowler who'd "been boasting about it ever since" after dismissing him in a similar match a few years previously. "Two overs later, Bill Black had to plead with his captain to be taken off, nursing an analysis of 2-0-62-0." Fred Trueman: the Authorised Biography I thought I'd finish with a current book. There are several volumes by and about Fred Trueman, including John Arlott's excellent Fred (the one the man himself apparently wanted to subtitle "t'greatest fast bowler who ever drew breath"), so the arrival of a new one, by Chris Waters of the Yorkshire Post, did not initially set the pulse racing. But it's an absorbing read, starting with an account of a meeting of Yorkshire minds - Trueman, Boycott, Close and Illingworth - which really should have been filmed and played weekly on TV. Almost every FST story you've ever heard - and several you haven't - is dusted off and put into context. A personal favourite is the time he was hauled before the Yorkshire committee for a supposed misdemeanour in Bristol, only to escape punishment when he pointed out that 20,000 witnesses would testify that he was playing a Test at Lord's at the time. It's captivating stuff, and a suitable tribute to a legendary cricketer.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/557746.html

[Crookbond]

TFS! :nice:

[Vijy]

Great collection of books. I wonder why CLR James' "Beyond a Boundary" isn't there, although it isn't just about cricket alone, but also about many other important issues.

[Crookbond]

Great collection of books. I wonder why CLR James' "Beyond a Boundary" isn't there' date=' although it isn't just about cricket alone, but also about many other important issues.[/quote'] Can we make this thread to list down such books recommended by ICF'ers ?

[Vijy]

Can we make this thread to list down such books recommended by ICF'ers ?

That would be awesome!

[Crookbond]

I would request the mods to do so. Please can we have a list of good cricket books into a sticky?

[Vijy]

I would request the mods to do so. Please can we have a list of good cricket books into a sticky?

Perhaps someone should start the list with their favourites...

[Sooda]

There must be a thread on that somewhere in ICF history. Anyway, a book I recommend is Mihir Boses History of Indian cricket. Awesome.

[Lurker]

Remember? Botham, Imran, Hadlee: all fierce rivals. You could imagine them in a western saloon. Botham would be the one chesting open the swing doors and shouting the bar, Imran the one comfortably encircled by comely belles in crinoline, Hadlee the one staring fixedly at his ice water. But that Injun, Kapil - he held aloof. He had the liveliest and least imitable action of all, a skipping, bounding run of gathering energy, and a delivery stride perfectly side-on but exploding at all angles, wrists uncoiling, arms elasticising, eyes afire. Which was part of his significance. No fast bowlers in India? Kapil could have hailed from no other country

:two_thumbs_up: http://indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=157756 http://indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=178347 http://indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=941