Masters of the art. They include Bill O’Reilly, who Sir Donald Bradman claimed to have been the greatest bowler of his experience; Clarrie Grimmett, arguably the 'father' of spin bowling in Australia; and the greatest spinner of the modern era, Shane Warne. The many other spin bowlers included in the book include Arthur Mailey, Don Blackie, Chuck Fleetwood-Smith, Jack Iverson, Richie Benaud, Jim Higgs, Tim May, Stuart MacGill and Nathan Lyon.

Spin bowlers in cricket are masters at making the ball loop slowly through the air to confuse batsmen. Legends of the game know the magic combinations of top-spin, side-spin and off-spin necessary to fool the opposition. The Magic of Spin, dissects the various aspects of spin bowling through the stories of the bowlers themselves. In addition it includes the history and evolution of spin bowling: the wrong’un or googly was 'invented' by Bernard (BJT) Bosenquet; Grimmett 'invented' the flipper, the ball Warne in later years bowled so brilliantly; and Bill O’Reilly learned about spin bowling by watching Grimmett like a hawk in Test matches. The batsmen who have played the great spinners through the years will also help to explain the dark art of spinning.

'Spin bowling is magical and to a lot of people [a few batsmen included] a mystery. ' – Ian Chappell

The Know the Game Skills series is the perfect introduction to a sport for every budding player. Each book aims to teach young players the basic skills they need to start enjoying their sport - by giving plenty of simple practice drills and showing how the star players do it. Cricket: Bowling aims to teach the basic skills needed to become successful with the ball. It teaches young players how to: - set the field - read a batsman - bowl different styles - adapt to different situations. Clearly illustrated and written by a professional coach, this book will give every player all the skills they need to enjoy cricket.

What is it like to follow the sun as a T20 gun for hire? Dan Christian is one of the world's most sought after cricketers, not only a star for the Sydney Sixers but having been part of teams in premier leagues from India and Pakistan to South Africa and the Caribbean. In The All-Rounder, he takes us on a globe-trotting tour from Karachi to Cardiff, from the billion-dollar Indian Premier League, where he played for Virat Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore, to the inaugural season of England's new franchise competition The Hundred, where he led Manchester Originals. It was a never-ending summer like no other, shadowed by COVID-19, encased in bio-secure bubbles, in which Dan also reflected on his indigenous heritage and grappled with imminent fatherhood, all the while concentrating on a fast-evolving, high-stakes game in which you're a champion one day, a chump the next.

Cricket is an enduring paradox. On the one hand, it symbolises much that is outmoded: imperialism; a leisured elite; a rural, aristocratic Englishness. On the other, it endures as a global game and does so by skilful adaptation, trading partly on its mythic past and partly on its capacity to repackage itself. This ambitious new history recounts the politics of cricket around the world since the Second World War, examining key cultural and political themes, including decolonisation, racism, gender, globalisation, corruption and commercialisation. Part One looks at the transformation of cricket cultures in the ten territories of the former British Empire in the years immediately after 1945, a time when decolonisation and the search for national identity touched every cricket playing region in the world. Part Two focuses on globalisation and the game's evolution as an international sport, analysing: social change and the Ashes; the campaigns for new cricket formats; the development of the women's game; the new breed of coach; the limits to the game's global expansion; and the rise of India as the world's leading cricket power. Cricket: A Political History of the Global Game, 1945-2017 is fascinating reading for anybody interested in the contemporary history of sport.

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of "Bumble," the legendary SkySports cricket commentator who's one ball short of an over and delivers madcap moments galore in this ebullient, endearing and hilarious new book.

David "Bumble" Lloyd is a legend in our living rooms, a genuine "good bloke" all cricket fans feel they know inside out because of his infectious, larger-than-life personality and that distinctive Lancashire burr.

Bumble has become the one constant for passionate English fans in cricket's rapidly changing landscape. He has earned cult status as a commentator and pundit, with viewers loving his unerring dedication to the game's great fables.

The World According to Bumble: Start the Car revels in the quirkier and humorous side of cricket, while offering behind-the-scenes action of Lloyd's years spent following cricket around the globe, from Accrington to Lahore.

Bumble waxes lyrical on everything from the genius of Shane Warne to the merits of Lancashire s premier pies and the delights of finishing the day with a couple of pints and a curry.

Enjoy the camaraderie that exists among the SkySports team - including former England captains Sir Ian Botham, Michael Atherton, Nasser Hussain and David Gower - and laugh out loud at the stories and anecdotes which have forged Bumble's character.

Whether he is holding up play to retrieve lost balls from the top of sight-screens, or enacting mock pitch reports from car parks, Bumble is capable of stealing the limelight at all times."

This book is an account of cricket in post-apartheid South Africa; from the tumultuous Gatting tour in which, ironically, the seeds of cricket unity were sown, to the Hansie Cronje saga and the change of leadership from Ali Bacher to Gerald Majola, and more recently to Haroon Lorgat. It is a story of a new pitch; a quick start full of hope, followed by a steady erosion of the commitments needed to fulfil the promise of a level playing field. Economic and political compromises contributed to holding back the piercing of the covers of race and class privilege. Alongside this, the hurried hollowing out of the “politics of cricket”, aided by black administrators assuming the accoutrements of office, saw very little internal challenge to the lack of transformation. Meanwhile, global realignments in cricket initially gave South Africa some respite. But soon, the big three of Australia, England and India were collaborating to claim the lion’s share of global funding, thus limiting even further the resources necessary for development in the domestic game. In a sense, we are back to the Springfield-Kingsmead divide. But there will be no posthumous honours, however grudgingly given, to lovers of the game who are keeping it alive in townships or side streets. Those whose innings are defined by lumpy mats and broken gear garner far less sympathy or note. For is cricket not now open to all, just like the Ritz Hotel; a game of money, dazzle, dancing girls and quick results?

There are no villains here. Award-winning journalist Paul McNally finds corrupt cops, drug dealers, vigilante residents, addicts, torturers, murderers and cops partnered with drug dealers. But no villains.

Raymond is a shop owner on Ontdekkers Road, in Johannesburg, who takes a baseball bat to the dealers when they break his rules. He systematically records in his notebook the police officers who come – all day, every day – to collect their bribe money from the dealers, and is looking for someone to trust. Khaba is a middle-aged police officer who wants a quiet life but whose demons will not leave him in peace. He is trying to regain his trust in what he once regarded as an honourable profession. Wendy is a petite, ageing police reservist who can handle an R5 rifle with confidence, but not the sadness that accompanies her in her daily life – the loss of her police officer husband, brutally murdered by a drug lord, and the addiction that has her adult son in its grip. She is looking for respect and affirmation and for her own life to have meaning.

Through different paths, the lives of Raymond, Khaba and Wendy intersect on the street as their attention is focused on the current power couple – a drug dealer named Obi and Lerato, a police officer. Seemingly untouchable, Obi and Lerato terrorise Ontdekkers, and in the process upset the balance of this already lawless world.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

Batsmen are the poster boys of cricket. They are the richly rewarded andrightly celebrated stars of the game: Sachin Tendulkar, Vivian Richards, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, A.B.de Villiers and Kevin Pietersen. This is a story about them. Their hopes and fears, their triumph and torment. It is a book about the real feelings that batsmen experience and probes into their minds to see how they deal with one of the most precarious jobs in sport, in which life and death are one ball apart. Simon Hughes hero-worshipped the famous batsmen of his youth, and dreamt of scoring a hundred for England. His flawed attempts to make runs in a 15-year professional career are the prism through which he reflects on how some talented boys turn into great batsmen, and others lose their way. Now universally known as The Analyst, Hughes assesses what ingredients a batsman needs to succeed. He delves into sports psychology, showing that what goes on in the mind is the key to batting. There is no right way or wrong way to bat. This book reflects the diverse range of batting personalities and styles. Hughes spends time with many of the legendary players - from Garfield Sobers to Kumar Sangakkara - revealing what made each of them so prolific, and the secrets behind Sir Donald Bradman's phenomenal output. He chronicles the way batting has evolved and answers the fundamental question: are batsmen born or made? Written in the same wry, sardonic style as the award-winning A Lot of Hard Yakka, it is the most insightful and entertaining book about batsmen ever published.

Fourteen Ashes legends come together to tell the stories behind their most thrilling triumphs in the historic series - enabling cricket fans to relive these magic moments through the eyes and emotions of the men in the middle of the field, playing their hearts out for England and Australia in one of the sporting world's most intense rivalries. All the drama and intrigue of more than half a century of Ashes action is captured, from Sir Donald Bradman in the 1940s via Geoffrey Boycott and Jeff Thomson, Merv Hughes and Mark Taylor and into the new millennium, recreating all the excitement of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath taking on Michael Vaughan's England. Each player winds back the clock to reveal the tension, controversy, sledging, humour and passion involved in pursuit of glory - and the true cricketing greatness which can only ever be grasped within an Ashes series.

Five Trophies and a Funeral: The Building and Rebuilding of Durham County Cricket Club is the story of how English cricket's youngest first-class county quickly became the country's top team, before overstretching themselves financially to the brink of extinction. When Durham joined the professional game in 1992 they aspired to be a major on-field force and a home to top international cricket. The high demands put on them as a condition of entry, together with their own lofty ambitions, pushed the club to five major trophies in seven seasons while providing England with top-quality players reared in the North East. But striving for ever more at a time of economic downturn led them to live beyond their means, and they were heavily punished for overspending that the authorities partly encouraged. Now they are looking to restore past glories under the chairmanship of Sir Ian Botham. Part fairy tale, part cautionary story, Five Trophies explains how Durham arrived where they are, and where they aim to go next.

Graham Thorpe's achievements on the cricket field contrasted wildly with his personal problems, where drink and depression combined to send him spiralling off the rails. This is his brutally honest life story, including his dramatic retirement from Test cricket, and updated to include England's 2005 Ashes win, and his new coaching career. Graham Thorpe was one of the best batsmen in world cricket for more than a decade. Yet the national press hounded him as 'English cricket's most disturbed player' for pulling out of a series of tours and turning his back on the game more than once. With painful candour and often unexpected humour, Thorpe dissects his career in cricket and the inner recesses of his private life: the impact of his bitter divorce; the suicidal depression that afflicted him in his darkest hours; the reasons why he needed to 'save himself' by withdrawing from past England tours; the elation of his magnificent century on his comeback Test at the Oval in 2003; and his fresh outlook in life with a new partner after confronting his own failings and past troubles. Twelve years on from his Test debut against Australia, Thorpe took the decision to retire from international cricket after the disappointment of his controversial non-selection for the Ashes 2005 tour. With updated material on his coaching spell in Australia - where he gained valuable insight into cricket's No 1 nation - his new-found media role and his still-relevant views on where English cricket is heading post-Ashes 2005, Thorpe will continue to be an important figure in the game for years to come.

On the afternoon of 10 June 2018, Edinburgh became the centre of the cricketing world. Scotland's first-ever win over England not only proved the team's ability to go toe-to-toe with the best players on the planet, it also completed one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the history of Scottish sport. In a country known more for its hard luck stories than its triumphs, the victory was about more than a single result: it showed that Scotland's cricketers had discovered what it took to win. Playing with Teeth follows their journey to get there. Beginning with the disastrous campaign at the qualifier for the 2014 World T20, the book describes the cultural changes that unlocked the team's potential and enabled them to move on from the narrative of glorious failure that was so often the story of the past. Based on extended interviews with those at the heart of the action, Playing with Teeth records a unique time in the history of Scottish cricket while also providing a blueprint from which the whole of Scottish sport can learn.

From the late 19th century onwards, cricket was central to the culture of the British West Indies. By the 1890s, a small Indian middle class in British Guyana - present-day Guyana - began to advance their own credentials of belonging to the region. Seecheram explores the role of cricket in shaping Indo-Guyanese identity, from the example set by Prince Ranjitsinhji, or Ranji', to the seminal achievements of V.A. Veerasawmy and Chatterpaul 'Doosha' Persaud.'

It's Raining Bats and Pads: The Story of Lancashire County Cricket Club 1988-1996 vividly captures the sporting and cultural landscape of the late 1980s to mid-90s, and shows the sea change between then and now. It's a romantic jaunt through the halcyon days of Mike Atherton, Neil Fairbrother and Wasim Akram as seen through the eyes of the author, who as a child and young adult lived through that era. It harks back to the glory days of lazy linseed summers when life was much simpler, time was not strictly of the essence and kids had to entertain themselves. Although primarily a tale of Lancashire's success on the field - punctuated by some lively spectator incidents at the grounds - the book also explores broader societal questions. Is the game in a better place now? Has the standard of cricket improved? Has freedom of choice caused the game's popularity to fall among the young? And is the Hundred an allegory for a society that simply can't wait for better?

Legendary cricket broadcaster Henry Blofeld takes the reader on a journey from A-Z through the world of cricket. In his trademark charming style, Blowers goes through the alphabet, explaining some of the puzzling cricket terminology and regaling his favourite anecdotes from his fifty years in the sport, covering the most important moments in the sport's history as well as the most entertaining and amusing. The book will also contain a glossary for those who want to make sure they know their googlys from their bouncers. This gift book is perfect for fans of cricket who want to understand the sport from Henry's unique point of view, it is a humorous and entertaining jaunt through the cricket landscape.

The most thrilling and controversial cricketer of his generation, Brian Lara is a hero to millions worldwide. A naturally attacking style and limitless scoring arc, allied to phenomenal mental and physical stamina, proved a recipe for some of the biggest and most-compelling innings in cricket history. This new biography charts the influences that shaped Lara as a child batting prodigy, through an astonishing and turbulent career and onto his post-cricket life as businessman, benefactor and national icon. Through in-depth interviews with former international players, coaches, teachers, neighbours, friends and family members, new light is shed on this brilliant but complex man; a true Caribbean hero who still has many chapters to write.

Few other team sports can equal the global reach of cricket. Rich in history and tradition, it is both quintessentially English and expansively international, a game that has evolved and changed dramatically in recent times. Demonstrating how the history of cricket and its international popularity is entwined with British imperial expansion, this book examines the social and political impact of the game in a variety of cultural sites: the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. An international team of contributors explores the enduring influence of cricket on English identity, examines why cricket has seized the imagination of so many literary figures and provides profiles of iconic players including Bradman, Lara and Tendulkar. Presenting a global panoramic view of cricket's complicated development, its unique adaptability and its political and sporting controversies, the book provides a rich insight into a unique sporting and cultural heritage.

Few other team sports can equal the global reach of cricket. Rich in history and tradition, it is both quintessentially English and expansively international, a game that has evolved and changed dramatically in recent times. Demonstrating how the history of cricket and its international popularity is entwined with British imperial expansion, this book examines the social and political impact of the game in a variety of cultural sites: the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. An international team of contributors explores the enduring influence of cricket on English identity, examines why cricket has seized the imagination of so many literary figures and provides profiles of iconic players including Bradman, Lara and Tendulkar. Presenting a global panoramic view of cricket's complicated development, its unique adaptability and its political and sporting controversies, the book provides a rich insight into a unique sporting and cultural heritage.

Introduced by Michael Atherton, the former England cricket captain, this book brings together James Lawton's best writing on cricket providing a powerful commentary on the world of cricket over the last decade.