ENGLAND WILL NEVER BE THE SAME. Loosely based on the sad tale of the cricketers of Clifton College, whose cricket first eleven all volunteered for active service at the commencement of the First World War, suffering the inevitable consequences. The story follows the early adventures of the cricket-mad public schoolboys of Wickham Dale, where sexual scandals are simmering beneath the surface. The boys smutty, knockabout, knob-orientated humour is a spoof of the 'Boy's Own' derring-do adventures in early C20 junior fiction, as is the underlying morality of the time, cricket etiquette and outdated values that perished on the bloody fields of Flanders and France. Underpinning the story is the relationship between shy, introverted would-be poet Jack Bigglesworth and his childhood playmate, the liberated, free-spirited, audacious and impetuous Kitty Ketteridge. Their subsequent fate, anguish and disillusionment of the survivors is recounted in awful detail, as is the deserved fate of the school miscreants.

Crickets oldest, and fiercest, rivalry! No contest in cricket comes close to matching The Ashes for drama, passion and sporting theatre. When England and Australia go head to head, two countries hold their collective breath and prepare for a roller-coaster ride of power, pride, pain and victory at all costs. But it's also about respect - a love of the game and the realisation that two great sporting nations are entwined through one of sport's greatest rivalries. With over 135 years of Ashes history, here's a collection of the best quotes and defining moments - from 'Bodyline' to 'Botham's Ashes', from Lord's to the Gabba, from 'The Don' to 'The Barmy army'. 'England have only three major problems. They can't bat, they can't bowl and they can't field.' - Martin Johnson's assessment at the start of the 1986-87 tour. England's recovery to win the Ashes later led Johnson to remark: 'Right quote, wrong team.'

If someone were to say 'it's not tennis', or 'not football' of shabby behaviour in any walk of life, he or she would not be understood. If they said 'it's not cricket', they probably would be (though less reliably than a century ago). Is there some special spirit of cricket? The laws of cricket, like the laws of the land, aim at a sort of justice or balancing between different factions. The purpose behind cricket's laws, and behind changes in them, is often to calibrate the balance in the game between batsmen and bowlers, between attack and defence, between safety and risk. Cricketing lawmakers are interested in the overall appeal of the game to players and spectators alike. In Spirit of Cricket, Mike Brearley alternates between issues and examples within the game - from 'Mankading' and the 'Sandpaper' affair to sledging, mental disintegration and racism - as well as broader issues such as the spirit and letter of the law. Brearley examines the issue of how far what purports to be justice (in law or in spirit) may or may not be the expression of the powerful within the activity or within society. He also contrasts cheating and corruption, and reflects on the nature of penalties in regard to each. He discusses the significance of the notion of the spirit of the game for umpires, groundsmen, administrators, media and spectators - and, of course, for players. Intelligent and insightful, Spirit of Cricket points to qualities in cricket that enhance our development as people - including a sense of fair play, the embracing of striving both for our team and for ourselves and the important values of playfulness in life and professional sport.

THE #5 TIMES BESTSELLER Ever wondered what it's truly like being an England test cricketer? Why not ask England's greatest ever bowler? Jimmy Anderson invites you into his world of cricket and gives you a very personal insight into what it's like playing at the top level. Through stories of his 16-year international career, Jimmy draws back the curtain on test cricket to reveal bizarre superstitions and rituals, strange training camps, the personalities he's encountered, life on tour and what it's like being a bowler in a batsman's world. Bowl. Sleep. Repeat. is a fascinating, entertaining and deeply personal look at the game of cricket and what life's like beyond the boundary rope.

***** A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK & SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER "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 "Whether you love cricket or are still confused by the rules of the game, you'll love this. Felix's writing is warm and witty. A joy to read." - Cariad Lloyd 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?

Neil Harvey: The Last Invincible is the first major biography of Australian cricketer Neil Harvey, the last living member of Donald Bradman's 1948 Invincibles. Neil Harvey was one of Australia's greatest left-handed batsmen and a prolific run scorer. He was the youngest member of Bradman's famous team, the Invincibles, which toured England in 1948 and remained undefeated in their 34 matches. Representing Australia, Harvey's stunning test career spans from his moment as the youngest Australian test cricketer to score a century, to vice-captain of the Australian team from 1957 until his retirement. Harvey played 79 Tests for Australia, making more than 6000 runs and 21 centuries. Bowlers rarely found a way of disrupting his concentration or curbing his attack. Harvey has been inducted into the Australian and ICC Cricket Hall of Fame, named in the Australian Test Team of the 20th Century and awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia. Now, for the first time, there is a full-length biography to capture the career and life behind this living legend. In Neil Harvey: The Last Invincible, biographer and former Australian test cricketer Ashley Mallett draws not only on Harvey's own recollections but those of Australian and international cricketers, commentators and officials to bring to life his remarkable story.

Love him or loathe him, Ricky Ponting is one of the biggest names in cricket, having been at the heart of so many memorable Ashes and Test encounters over the years. Coinciding with the end of Ponting's spectacular career, 'At the Close of Play' is a must-read for all cricket fans.

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.

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.

'Completely brilliant' Ian Hislop It seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of eleven men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe. Except - hold on a minute - that's not a simple idea at all. And when you throw in incompetent airline officials, amorous Argentine Colonels' wives, cunning Bajan drug dealers, gay Australian waiters, overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiot Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and whole armies of pitch-invading Antarctic penguins, you quickly arrive at a whole lot more than you bargained for. Harry Thompson's hilarious book tells the story of one of those great idiotic enterprises that only an Englishman could have dreamed up, and only a bunch of Englishmen could possibly have wished to carry out.

Adolf Hitler despised cricket, considering it un-German and decadent. And Berlin in 1937 was not a time to be going against the Fuhrer's wishes. But hot on the heels of the 1936 Olympics, an enterprising cricket fanatic of enormous bravery, Felix Menzel, somehow persuaded his Nazi leaders to invite an English team to play his motley band of part-timers. That team was the Gentlemen of Worcestershire, an ill-matched group of mavericks, minor nobility, ex-county cricketers, rich businessmen and callow schoolboys - led by former Worcestershire CC skipper Major Maurice Jewell. Ordered 'not to lose' by the MCC, Jewell and his men entered the 'Garden of Beasts' to play two unofficial Test matches against Germany. Against a backdrop of repression, brutality and sporadic gunfire, the Gents battled searing August heat, matting pitches, the skill and cunning of Menzel, and opponents who didn't always adhere to the laws and spirit of the game. The tour culminated in a match at the very stadium which a year before had witnessed one of sport's greatest spectacles and a sinister public display of Nazi might. Despite the shadow cast by the cataclysmic conflict that was shortly to engulf them, Dan Waddell's vivid and detailed account of the Gentlemen of Worcestershire's 1937 Berlin tour is a story of triumph: of civility over barbarity, of passion over indifference and hope over despair.

The third edition of the hugely successful Ashes Miscellany, a bestseller in 2005 and 2007. Fully revised, updated and repackaged to include the victorious 2009 and 2010/11 series, the book celebrates the rich history of one of the oldest and greatest rivalries in sport. Packed with facts, figures, lists, quotes and anecdotes - from the legend of the burning of the bails in 1871 to England's amazing triumph in 2011, from W.G. Grace and Don Bradman to David Boon's Ashes record of drinking 58 beers on the flight from Sydney to London!

*A MULTIPLE AWARD-WINNING SPORTS WRITER* 'Hamilton's book is a marvel . . . I'm not sure he could write a dull sentence if he tried' Spectator One of Duncan Hamilton's favourite writers on cricket, Edmund Blunden, wrote how he felt going to watch a game: 'You arrive early, earlier even than you meant . . . and you feel a little guilty at the thought of the day you propose to give up to sheer luxury'. Following Neville Cardus's assertion that 'there can be no summer in this land without cricket', Hamilton plotted the games he would see in 2019 and write down reflectively on some of the cricket that blessed his own sight. It would be captured in the context of the coming season in case subsequent summers and the imminent arrival of The Hundred made that impossible. He would write in the belief that after this season the game might never be quite the same again. He visits Welbeck Colliery Cricket Club to see Nottinghamshire play Hampshire at the tiny ground of Sookholme, gifted to the club by a local philanthropist who takes money on the gate; his village team at Menston in Yorkshire; the county ground at Hove; watches Ben Stokes's heroics at Headingley, marvels at Jofra Archer's gift of speed in a Second XI fixture for Sussex against Gloucestershire in front of 74 people and three well-behaved dogs; and realises when he reaches the last afternoon of the final county match of the season at Taunton, 'How blessed I am to have been born here. How I never want to live anywhere else. How much I love cricket.' One Long and Beautiful Summer forms a companion volume to Hamilton's 2009 classic, A Last English Summer. It is sports writing at its most accomplished and evocative, confirming his reputation as the finest contemporary chronicler of the game.

Former Gloucestershire Media Sports Writer of the Year Rob Harris has been playing village cricket for almost 40 years. In inner cities some kids join street gangs in search of respect, but in Rob's childhood the gangs were village cricket clubs and the weapon of choice was a Gunn & Moore bat. Won't You Dance for Virat Kohli? is an honest, funny and colourful account of sporting obsession and how a childhood passion for cricket can dominate grown-up thoughts, dreams, relationships - and weekends. This is the story of one humble club cricketer's misguided search for personal respect and fulfilment in the strangest of places, foregoing holidays and family time to spend long summer days lounging around village greens with other screwed-up 'weekend warriors', whilst secretly wishing he was somewhere - anywhere - else. It is a book that will resonate with anyone who knows and loves grass-roots cricket.

Sachin and Azhar at Cape Town is the story of an incredible partnership between Tendulkar and Azharuddin in the Newlands Test of 1997. Replying to 529, India slumped to 58/5 against Donald, Pollock, McMillan and Klusener. What followed was an exhilarating counter-attack from both ends, seldom seen in Test cricket. With Nelson Mandela watching on - he met the players during lunch that day - the pair added a magical 222 in 40 overs, treating the lethal bowling attack with disdain. Arunabha Sengupta and Abhishek Mukherjee relive the partnership, recounting and analysing every stroke, but as they do, they also bring to life the cricket, history and society of the two countries. Covering a multitude of topics as diverse as apartheid, Mandela and Gandhi, Indians in South Africa; cricket isolation and non-white cricket in South Africa, rebel tours; the television revolution and commercialisation of cricket; with other historical details and numerical analysis of the game supporting the text, this is a fascinating snapshot of cricket at that time through the prism of that impressive sixth-wicket stand.

For over a decade Luke Fletcher has been a firm fan favourite at Trent Bridge. This 6'6" gentle giant never gives less than 100 per cent for Nottinghamshire, but a laugh and a joke are never far from his lips. Within the space of a week in 2017 he went from the highs of winning a Lord's cup final to suffering a serious injury. As with most events in his life, the incidents provided scope for his infectious humour, much of it self-deprecating. An uncanny ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and his on-off relationship with the strength and conditioning gurus has often landed him in hot water, providing ammunition for witty comebacks. But although a clever quip is never far away, the broad-beamed paceman has earned the respect of everyone in the game. He has played against - and got the better of - virtually every opponent he has faced and has a career record to be proud of. In Tales from the Front Line, 'Fletch' serves up laughs aplenty as he takes us on an anecdotal journey through our summer game.