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.

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?

Cricket fans everywhere will know of Len Hutton [1916-90] who as an opening batsman, enjoyed a stellar career with Yorkshire and England before and after the Second World War. Born into a family of cricketers in Fulneck, near Bradford, Hutton played the game as a schoolboy and joined Pudsey St Lawrence CC as a junior member, aged 12. He soon became established at the club and by the time he reached his 16th birthday, he was a regular first team player. As Hutton's reputation grew he was introduced into County cricket with Yorkshire where he began quietly in the second team. His early experiences added to coaching from Yorkshire's staff brought Hutton, aged 20, into Yorkshire's first team as the County's opening batsman. Never flamboyant but always defensively sound, Hutton was one of the best batsmen in the world and in 1938 at the Oval, showed his brilliance in the last Test of an Ashes series. His score of 364 was a monumental achievement and remained the highest Test innings for twenty years. When serving in the Army in the Second World War, Hutton fractured his left arm in an accident in a gymnasium. The injury never healed properly and despite several operations, the arm settled at about two inches shorter than his right arm. Despite the injury Hutton returned to First Class cricket where his Test and County career culminated in his appointment as captain of England, the first modern professional cricketer to achieve that honour. After victory in the Ashes series of 1953, Hutton took a young party to Australia to defend them and, with the help of the devastating pace attack of Tyson and Statham, emerged victorious. Hutton retired in 1956 and was knighted in the same year. This excellent biography was written with the full cooperation of the subject and is now reissued with more illustrations, to commemorate the centenary of Len Hutton's birth.

Better Than He Knew: The Graham Barlow Story recalls the cricketing life of Graham Barlow, a talented all-round sportsman and largely unsung member of the Middlesex team that dominated domestic cricket from 1976 to 1985. Emerging from schoolboy cricket, seven years passed before he established himself in 1976. Cast aside after a 300-day international career, his focus on fitness and fielding often overshadowed his pugnacious batting. After a disastrous 1982, promotion to the top of the order to open with Wilf Slack provided the stability that he longed for and triggered the most successful period of his career until injury forced retirement. A global coaching career followed with success in New Zealand as head coach of Central Districts. Better Than He Knew is a deeply personally tribute that includes Graham's memoirs and synchronistic thoughts about the ups and downs of his life and career. There's also insight from former team-mates, whose stories celebrate this likeable cricketer and a golden era of county cricket.

India's first Test series win in England in 1971 was epic and magical, with a resonance far beyond the scorecards. The cricket was riveting, with twists and turns right up to the last ball, and the excitement was garnished by a baby elephant parading the outfield of The Oval on the final day. The victory had immense significance for a country that had gained independence from Britain less than 25 years earlier and was tottering on the brink of a history-defining war. In the background were the British illusions of moral and cultural superiority even as decolonisation went through its final phase. The Indians often accepted these illusions as they struggled for the most basic necessities of life, battling against poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy. Thus, the victory provided a major equaliser for the national psyche. Elephant in the Stadium examines the many reasons for the myth and magic that still surround the triumph, including the complex historical relationship between Britain and India.

A new illustrated edition of the classic book of cricketing advice. Foreword by former England Test cricketer and bestselling author Derek Pringle. The advice found in Don'ts for Cricketers was originally printed in 1906 and contains hundreds of snippets of entertaining, timeless and amusing advice for cricketers of all abilities. The content, ranging from technique and equipment to etiquette on the field, provides a fascinating snapshot of life in early twentieth-century Britain. Advice includes: 'Don't be in two minds about how you are going to play the ball, for that way madness lies.' 'Don't be sulky or sad if your bowling is punished or your captain takes you off bowling when you want to continue.' 'Don't forget the motto of that famous old cricket club, I Zingari: "Keep your promise, keep your temper, keep your wicket up."'

Alex Blackwell lived and breathed our national sport of cricket for thirty years. Starting as a kid, she spent her childhood and teen years on the field with her identical twin, Kate, who was equally devoted to the bat and ball. While both sisters went on to represent Australia, Alex built a 15-year career in the green and gold, eventually rising to the captaincy, notching up an eye-watering list of sporting achievements and etching her name into cricket's history. But life off the field brought challenges of its own. From her professional debut, Alex was unafraid to call out hypocrisy and go in to battle against the traditional hierarchies of the game. Speaking out and becoming a passionate advocate for women and LGBTQI people in sport won her many fans and much respect, but it didn't come without a price. Fair Game is the unmissable account of life and leadership inside Australia's most loved sporting team, told by one of its most capped players of all time. This is the story of the sacrifices and victories, the extreme highs and devastating lows, that come with playing sport at the highest level, and of what it takes to be truly courageous on and off the field.

In the early 80s, 20 black West Indian cricketers were paid more than $100,000 each to take part in rebel tours of apartheid South Africa. Some, such as Lawrence Rowe and Alvin Kallicharran, were household names in the Caribbean and around the world, while others were fringe players seeking a short cut out of poverty. All would be condemned by the international cricketing fraternity. Accused of pocketing 'blood money' in order to prop up a regime that systematically discriminated against people of their own colour, they were banned for life from playing the sport they loved. In many cases, they were shunned by their fellow countrymen. A few turned to drugs and gangs, some turned to God - and others found themselves begging on the streets and dealing with mental illness. Forgotten and neglected for close to four decades, The Unforgiven tells their often-tragic stories through face-to-face interviews that explore the human cost of an onerous decision made early in these young men's lives.

'To say "the best cricket book ever written" is piffingly inadequate praise' Guardian 'Great claims have been made for [Beyond a Boundary] since its first appearance in 1963: that it is the greatest sports book ever written; that it brings the outsider a privileged insight into West Indian culture; that it is a severe examination of the colonial condition. All are true' Sunday Times C L R James, one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century, was devoted to the game of cricket. In this classic summation of half a lifetime spent playing, watching and writing about the sport, he recounts the story of his overriding passion and tells us of the players whom he knew and loved, exploring the game's psychology and aesthetics, and the issues of class, race and politics that surround it. Part memoir of a West Indian boyhood, part passionate celebration and defence of cricket as an art form, part indictment of colonialism, Beyond a Boundary addresses not just a sport but a whole culture and asks the question, 'What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?

South Africa has produced more great cricket all-rounders than any other country, and Jacques Kallis and 12 Other Great South African All-Rounders, a first on these remarkable players, is based on records, articles and interviews with living players as well as archival research of early players.

Over a hundred years ago, there was Jimmy Sinclair, the first man to score a century and take six wickets in an innings in a test match. More recently was the brilliant era of Eddie Barlow, Tiger Lance, Mike Procter and Clive Rice, as well as Tony Greig and Basil D’Oliveira, South Africans who played for England. A great tradition was established for the modern era: since re-admission in 1992 there has been Brian McMillan, Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener and, the greatest of them all, Jacques Kallis. Jacques Kallis and 12 Other Great South African All-Rounders is about the 13 men each of whom were worth two or three players in one, worth their place as batsmen or bowlers, adored by the fans, and capable of changing a game with either of their skills.

With a readable mix of anecdotes, commentary and statistics, Jacques Kallis and 12 Other Great South African All-Rounders is the first book about these multitalented heroes of cricket. A very special feature of the book is the inclusion of the careers of four black allrounders who were unable to play for national teams because of their race.

***** THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK "Felix White's beautifully, elegantly and passionately written book reminds me why I love cricket so much. And reading, come to that." - Stephen Fry "The love of cricket is both communal and individual. Felix has a wonderful knack of evoking both in a book full of life, joy and resilience." - Gideon Haigh "Life beyond sport, love after loss, a soulful portrait of how play stops the rain." - Cariad Lloyd "This is an extraordinary first book ... funny, tragic, candid and heartfelt; it would be remarkable if he ever wrote a better one." - Wisden Almanack 2022 Felix White, for reasons often beyond him, has always been deeply in love with cricket. His passion for the game is at the fore on the BBC 's number one cricket podcast and 5Live show, Tailenders, which he co-presents with Greg James and Jimmy Anderson. It's Always Summer Somewhere is his funny, heartbreaking and endlessly engaging love letter to the game. Felix takes us through his life growing up in South West London and describes how his story is forever punctuated and given meaning by cricket. Through his own exploits as a slow left arm spinner of 'lovely loopy stuff', to the tragic illness of his mother, life with The Maccabees and his cricket redemption, Felix touches on both the comedic and the tragic in equal measure. Throughout, there's the ever-present roller coaster of following the England cricket team. The exploits of Tufnell (another bowler of 'lovely loopy stuff'), Atherton, Hussain et al, are given extra import through the eyes of a cricket-obsessed youth. Felix meets them at each signposted moment to find out what was really behind those moments that gave cricket fans everywhere sporting memories that would last forever, sending the book into an exploration of grief, transgenerational displacement and how the people we've known and things we've loved culminate and take expression in our lives. It's Always Summer Somewhere is an incredibly honest detail of a life lived with cricket. It offers a sense of genuine empathy and understanding not just with cricket fans, but sports and music fans across the world, in articulating our reasons for pouring so much meaning into something that we simply cannot control. Culminating in the heart-stopping World Cup Final in 2019, the book finally answers that question fans have so often asked... what is it about this game?

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?

Bringing together leading international writers on cricket and society, this important new book places cricket in the postcolonial life of the major Test-playing countries. Exploring the culture, politics, governance and economics of cricket in the twenty-first century, this book dispels the age-old idea of a gentle game played on England's village greens.

This is an original political and historical study of the game's development in a range of countries and covers:

* cricket in the new Commonwealth: Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Caribbean and India
* the cricket cultures of Australia, New Zealand and post-apartheid South Africa
* cricket in England since the 1950s.

This new book is ideal for students of sport, politics, history and postcolonialism as it provides stimulating and comprehensive discussions of the major issues including race, migration, gobalization, neoliberal economics, the media, religion and sectarianism.

Mike Brearley was one of England's greatest cricket captains. He thrice won the Ashes, including the unforgettable series of 1981, when his leadership helped England to snatch victory from defeat. Yet there was nothing inevitable about his rise. A spell out of the game in his mid-20s stymied his progress and when he returned full-time to captain Middlesex, his innovative approach found little favour with the old guard. In this first-ever biography of Brearley, award-winning cricket writer Mark Peel reveals how Brearley overcame his critics to lead Middlesex to four county championships and two Gillette Cup wins. His rise to the England captaincy was fast, but his unrivalled leadership skills contrasted with his repeated failures with the bat. Away from cricket, Brearley possessed a range of cultural interests along with a sharp intellect, which saw him achieve eminence as a psychoanalyst. Drawing on interviews with friends and team-mates, Peel assesses the many facets of this complex man to explain his phenomenal success as a leader.

Perfect for cricket fans everywhere, Thanks Johnners is a warm and witty tribute to Brian Johnston and his time at the helm of Test Match Special.

The Test Match Special on-air incident, in which Jonathan Agnew's comment on Ian Botham's attempt to avoid stepping on his stumps "He just couldn't quite get his leg over" provoking prolonged fits of giggles, most notably from Brian Johnston, has been voted the greatest piece of sporting commentary ever. The friendship between "Aggers" and "Johnners" became immortalised through that broadcasting classic, but there was a far deeper bond between the two men, as this fascinating book reveals.

Jonathan Agnew had grown up to the sound of Johnston, Arlott, and a young Martin-Jenkins et al on TMS as he followed his father around on the family farm, ear glued to the transistor radio, but the two men met formally only when Agnew joined the BBC team at Headingley in 1991.

Thus began a great working partnership which, fuelled by a mutual passion for the noble game, bridged the generation gap and ended only with Johnston's sudden death in 1994. As this book demonstrates so convincingly, Johnners's wit, warmth and sense of fun was a feature not only of his cricket commentaries, but also in the way he lived his life. His influence on "Aggers" is clearly recognisable in the same amiable and informal manner in which his successor presents Test Match Special today.

Thanks, Johnners is a rich blend of biography and anecdote, of antics and dramas on and off the pitch, in and out of the commentary box, its pages filled with stories about the great names of cricket including Fred Trueman, Geoffrey Boycott, Vivian Richards, Michael Holding and Ian Botham. Just as TMS is the sound of summer, so Thanks, Johnners is the fresh breeze rippling the long grass of remembered pleasures."

Cricket Drona takes us through the life of cricketing genius Vasoo Paranjape, who left a defining impact on the game, shaping the careers of some of Indian cricket's greatest figures, from Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin Tendulkar, from Rahul Dravid to Rohit Sharma. This book is a first-hand chronicle of stories, life lessons and game-changing experiences, written in the words of those who were lucky enough to have crossed paths with Paranjape at just the right time in their careers. For generations of cricketers across India, and even for some in other parts of the world, Paranjape has been an inspiration, a mentor, friend and guide. Peel back the layers and get to the core of a life that nurtured and nourished generations of India's best cricketing talent.

Alongside the SAS, Harry's other lifetime love is cricket. An improvised game of cricket was often the circuit-breaker Harry and his team needed after the tension of operations. He began a tradition of organising matches wherever he was sent, whether it was in the mountains of East Timor with a fugitive rebel leader, or on the dusty streets of Baghdad, or in exposed Forward Operating Bases in the hills of Afghanistan. Soldiers, locals and even visiting politicians played in these spontaneous yet often bridge-building games. As part of the tradition, Harry also started to take a cricket bat with him on operational tours, eleven of them in total. They'd often go outside the wire with him and end up signed by those he met or fought alongside. These eleven bats form the basis for Harry's extraordinary memoir. It's a book about combat, and what it takes to serve in one of the world's most elite formations. It's a book about the toll that war takes on soldiers and their loved ones. And it's a book about the healing power of cricket, and how a game can break down borders in even the most desperate of circumstances.

The quintessential barking-mad Yorkshire cricketer, 'Hoggy's' record-breaking bowling exploits for England allied to his humorous, uniquely oddball yet hugely endearing attitude to sport and life makes this essential reading for all lovers of the game. More than just a line-and-length cricketer's biography, Hoggy offers an entertaining insight into the weird and wonderful world of one of cricket's true characters. From the pub to the wicket and everywhere in-between, the dogged nightwatchman and wicket-taker looks beyond the runs and wickets to reveal what cricketers really get up to on tour and in the dressing room ...

When England cricket captain Tony Greig announced that he intended to make the West Indies 'grovel', he lit a fire that burned as intensely as the sunshine that made 1976 one of the most memorable summers in British history. Spurred on by what they saw as a deeply offensive remark, especially from a white South African, Clive Lloyd's touring team vowed to make Greig pay. In Viv Richards, emerging as the world's most exciting batsman, and fast bowlers Michael Holding and Andy Roberts they had the players to do it. Featuring interviews with key figures from English and West Indian cricket, Grovel!: The Story and Legacy of the Summer of 1976 provides a fascinating study of the events and social issues surrounding one of the sport's most controversial and colourful tours - as well as addressing the decline of West Indies cricket and its loss of support in the new century.

Im in the team can you come and watch me play? If you will be sitting by a cricket pitch this summer, mystified by the antics on the field in front of you, Cricket Made Simple is the book for you. Not only will it help to explain what is going on from the spectators viewpoint it will also raise you several notches in your loved ones esteem. After reading Cricket Made Simple, you will be able to talk knowledgeably about spin and swing bowling, off drives, knocking in, and know the difference between a googly and an off-break. You might even enjoy the matches much more as a result. Just as well because they can take up a whole day at junior level, or up to five days for a Test match. The author, a mother who has spent many seasons at her sons playing fields, provides a complete guide to the intricacies of cricket for all those bemused supporters to whom this sport is a complete mystery. She also includes valuable advice on supporter etiquette and preparing cricket teas as well as dealing with the inevitable washing mountain. Cricket Made Simple is for all bemused supporters, male and female, who loyally turn out to cheer in all weathers.

For the first time in 20 years, the Cricket World Cup returns to England and Wales and with our National team close to the top of the one day rankings, expectation and enthusiasm for this event is bound to be high. Each of the eleven tournaments have been written up that include records of matches and individual performances, as well as a brief setting of the scene. Clear and concise, these chapters include the relevant statistics (highest and lowest totals, match aggregates, highest partnerships, top individual batting and bowling performances and biggest and smallest victory margins etc). Quirky findings such as the lowest team total to include a century partnership, birthday performances, most batsmen bowled out in an innings, as well as many more, are revealed in the miscellany section, and which are sure to delight cricket lovers. A History & Guide to the Cricket World Cup is informative, factual and engaging, and is sure to make the perfect companion for attendees of this year's tournament.

From English cricket's embarrassing failure at the 2015 World Cup to their heart-stopping victory four years later, Nick Hoult and Steve James vividly describe the team's dramatic journey from abject disappointment to finally lifting the trophy. Morgan's Men reveals how the team became the most aggressive limited-overs side in the world, led by their inspirational captain Eoin Morgan, whose vision and determination to succeed captured the imagination of the nation. Hoult and James follow England's journey from Bangladesh to Barbados, from Melbourne to Manchester, to present the inside story of the team's rebirth. They tell us how players dealt with the Ben Stokes court case, the sacking of Alex Hales for a drugs ban, and reveal the innovative new strategies and tactics that helped them become the best in the world, culminating in a World Cup final that was arguably the greatest one-day match of all time.