Who played the best pranks on his fellow team-mates? Which member of the TMS team terrorised his teachers in the annual staff-pupil game? And the truth behind 'the greatest sporting commentary of all time'... Between them, Jonathan Agnew and Phil Tufnell have probably watched more cricket than anyone alive, and they have many stories to tell, both as players and as commentators for Test Match Special. From their days as schoolboy cricketers, learning the ropes, to the shenanigans of the county circuit, and now their careers as commentators, they have seen it all. Joined by colleagues from TMS such as Isa Guha, Ebony Rainford Brent, Alison Mitchell, Carlos Brathwaite and Aatif Nawaz, Aggers and Tuffers share the highlights, mishaps and moments of brilliance and emotion that they have witnessed and experienced on pitches around the world.

A TIMES SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A treasure of recollections and reactions, talking heroes, controversies and big themes' i paper 'Brearley is at his best in these quirky, delightful essays when he is exploring the human qualities of humbler players . . . Brearley's admiration for his friends' decency, craftsmanship and modesty seems to recall a golden age of country cricket' The Times 'Brearley has a knack for paying respect to the past without denigrating the present and for calmly considering the future' Mail on Sunday Mike Brearley was arguably one of England's finest cricket captains; not just for his outstanding record leading his country but also for the way he orchestrated, during the 1981 Ashes series, one of the most extraordinary reversals in sporting history. In this collection of sparkling essays, Brearley reflects on the game he has come to know so well. He ranges from the personal - the influence of his Yorkshire father and the idols of his youth - to controversial aspects of the professional game, including cheating, corruption, and innovation, the latter often being on a borderline between genius and rebellion. Brearley also evaluates his heroes (amongst them Viv Richards, Bishan Bedi and Dennis Lillee), the game changers, the outstanding wicketkeepers, the 'Indian-ness' of four generations of Indian batsmen and the important commentators (including Harold Pinter, John Arlott and Ian Chappell). The Ashes, the most sustained love-hate relationship in the history of sport and key to Brearley's test-playing career, are raked over. Central to the book is an important section on race and cricket, and the legacy of C. L. R. James. Insightful and humorous, On Cricket is an intelligent exposition of the game's idiosyncratic culture and its enduring appeal.

For most of his professional life Michael Parkinson has been a highly regarded sports journalist. This consistently entertaining collection of his best articles reminds us that his first love is cricket and the people who excel at it. His ambition to play for England was thwarted, but not before he opened the batting with a young Dickie Bird at Barnsley. Along with hilarious memories of his cricket mad father and a lost youth emulating his heroes in street games, Michael Parkinson has written compelling descriptions of great players he has known and the moments or matches during which they became famous. Unsurprisingly, there is an edge to what the author has to say about cricket administrators and the way the game is run; the book is a sheer joy to read and written with the author's easy assurance.

The period from 1993 has been one of the most successful in the history of Glamorgan CCC, with both league and cup victories. This is the story of this wonderful period, told in the players' own words, and supported by superb photographs by Huw John. It will appeal to all Glamorgan CCC supporters.

WINNER OF THE WISDEN BOOK OF THE YEAR As a young boy of eight, Jonny Bairstow was dealt a cruel blow. His father David 'Bluey' Bairstow, the combative and very popular wicketkeeper and captain of Yorkshire, took his own life at the age of forty-six. David left behind Jonny, Jonny's sister Becky and half-brother Andy, and his wife Janet, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer at the time of his death. From these incredibly tough circumstances, Jonny and his family strived to find an even keel and come to terms with the loss of their father and husband. Jonny found his way through his dedication to sport. He was a gifted and natural athlete, with potential careers ahead of him in rugby and football, but he eventually chose cricket and came to build a career that followed in his father's footsteps, eventually reaching the pinnacle of the sport and breaking the record for most Test runs in a year by a wicketkeeper. Written with multiple-award-winning writer Duncan Hamilton, this is an incredible story of triumph over adversity and a memoir with far-reaching lessons about determination and the will to overcome.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS CRICKET BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 'Verdict on Willis book: a treat' - Express 'The book is a gem' - Mike Atherton 'It's a lovely book, containing previously unseen musings from the great man' - David Lloyd 'enjoyable and eye-opening... a delight to read' - The Telegraph 'A warm, polished recollection.' - The Guardian 'It's such a great read' - Piers Morgan 'Willis book will bowl you over' - Sunday Mirror & The People A biography celebrating the life of the legendary cricketer Bob Willis, with tributes from key figures in sports and media and a foreword by Sir Ian Botham. Following his passing in 2019, tributes to Bob came flooding in in every major news outlet and from every major figure in the industry - and outside of it. His career spanned decades, from his days as a cricketer for England to his time as a pundit on Sky TV. This autobiography includes never-before-seen writing from Bob alongside contributions from key figures as well as a detailed account of the great England victory over Australia at Headingly in 1981. The book, edited by Bob's brother David, combines a new biography, written by Daily Mail sportswriter Mike Dickson, with a celebration of a truly legendary man. Tributes from some of his many friends in the world of cricket and beyond are accompanied by reflections on highlights from an eventful life, drawing on autobiographical and personal material by Bob himself, contemporary press reports and the accounts of team-mates and opponents.

Cricket is a very old game in Scotland - far older than football, a sport which sometimes exercises a baleful, obsessive and deleterious effect on the national psyche. Cricket goes back at least as far as the Jacobite rebellions and their sometimes vicious aftermaths. It is often felt that Scottish cricket underplays itself. It has been portrayed as in some ways an English sport, a "softies" sport, and a sport that has a very limited interest among the general population of Scotland. This is emphatically not true, and this book is in part an attempt to prove that this is a misconception. Sixty-one games (it was going to be just 60, but one turned up at the last minute!) have been chosen from the past 250 years to show that cricket does indeed influence a substantial part of the nation. The matches have been selected at all levels, from Scotland against visiting Australian teams all the way down to a Fife school fixture. These naturally reflect the life, experience and geographical whereabouts of the author. The games are quirky sometimes, (and quirkily chosen) with an emphasis on important events in the broader history of this country, notably the imminence of wars and resumptions at the end of these conflicts. But the important thing is that every single cricket contest does mean an awful lot to some people.

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack was first published in 1864, and a new edition has been published every year since then. While limited-edition reprints of every edition of Wisden from 1864 to 1946 have been published over the past few decades, collecting these limited-edition reprints is not cheap as each one has normally been priced between GBP50 and GBP100. Now, for the first time, John Wisden & Co is offering a bundle of the print-on-demand reprints of the editions between 1916 and 1919, to allow cricket lovers more affordable access to this historic book which forms such a significant part of the game's great heritage.

There are many cricket books, and they are all the same. 'Don't Tell Goochie', autobiographical insights of nights on the tiles in Delhi with Lambie and the boys; 'Fruit cake days', a celebrated humourist recalls 'ball' - related banter of yore; and Wisden, a deadly weapon when combined with a thermos flask. Rain Men is different. Like the moment the genius of Richie Benaud first revealed itself to you, it is a cricketing epiphany, a landmark in the literature of the game. Shining the light meter of reason into cricket's incomparable madness, Marcus Berkmann illuminates all the obsessions and disappointments that the dedicated fan and pathologically hopeful clubman suffers year after year - the ritual humiliation of England's middle order, the partially-sighted umpires, the battling average that reads more like a shoe size. As satisfying as a perfectly timed cover drive, and rather easier to come by, Rain Men offers essential justification for anyone who has ever run a team-mate out on purpose or secretly blubbed at a video of Botham's Ashes.