David Mitchell's connection with cricket began when his grandad took him to Bradford in 1961 to watch Yorkshire play the Australians. It was the start of a lifelong passion for the game. Many hours were devoted to helping in the scorebox, playing Owzthat and listening to Test Match Special. `From Snicket to Wicket' is a personal, nostalgic and whimsical view of a game once played by white-clad players with a red ball. Now it is the opposite.

Slipless in Settle is a sentimental journey around club cricket in the north of England, a world far removed from the cliched lengthening-shadows-on-the-village-green image of the summer game. This is hardcore cricket played in former pit villages and mill towns. Winner of the 2011 MCC Cricket Book of the Year, it is about the little clubs that have, down the years, produced some of the greatest players Britain has ever seen, and at one time spent a fortune on importing the biggest names in the international game to boost their battle for local supremacy. Slipless in Settle is a warm, affectionate and outrageously funny sporting odyssey in which Andrew Flintoff and Learie Constantine rub shoulders with Asbo-tag-wearing all-rounders, there's hot-pot pie and mushy peas at the tea bar, two types of mild in the clubhouse, and a batsman is banned for a month for wearing a fireman's helmet when going out to face Joel Garner . . .