Tom Melville presents a well-documented history of cricket playing in America, focusing on its period of growth in the 1840s and its periodic revivals. Cricket failed to take on, or resisted, an American identity, but the sport had considerable appeal both as a sport and as an activity that fostered sportsmanship, control, public manners, and decorum. Cricket found acceptance mainly in the upper class but also appealed to working-class people.

Essential writings about cricket by the essential cricket commentator. '"Essential" is a big word in terms of ambition, but the contents of this book were essential in their time to the writer - but, while he cannot claim that they will be that to a reader, he wishes everyone who does read them something of the pleasure he had from writing them.' John Arlott, from the Preface Across a broadcasting career of some thirty-four years, the late John Arlott's commentating on cricket, above all on 'Test Match Special', earned him a popularity and affection unmatched by any who followed him. As Ian Botham noted, 'He was Cricket, there has never been a commentator like him and there never will be.' This book collects together his writings on cricket and cricketers across forty years. It contains pen portraits of the game's famous and not so famous figures, as well as jottings, diary entries and articles written for, among others, 'The Cricketer', 'Wisden Cricket Monthly' and the 'Guardian'. The qualities of his commentary that endeared him to listeners - articulate, leisurely, unfussy, but with a turn of phrase that was almost poetic - are all to be found here. For admirers of Arlott himself, and for anyone who cares about cricket, THE ESSENTIAL ARLOTT is essential reading.

Barbed Wire and Cucumber Sandwiches is the compelling story of a cricket tour framed in a landscape of turbulent social history. Cricket, England's gentle summer game, was shaken to its core by demonstrations, strikes, arrests and violence amid growing global disgust at apartheid, ahead of South Africa's planned 1970 tour. The battle to stop and then to save the tour split the nation, drove a wedge between the generations and destroyed friendships in an uncanny foreshadowing of Brexit. Fifty years on, acclaimed author and social historian Dr Colin Shindler has delved deep into the MCC archives for new information and gained exclusive interviews with key players of the time. Alongside the views of cricketers Mike Brearley and Ray Illingworth are the opinions of Labour politician Peter Hain, who was chairman of the Stop The Seventy Tour campaign. Barbed Wire and Cucumber Sandwiches brings you the full untold story of one of cricket's biggest controversies - the significance of which reaches far beyond the realm of sport.

England On This Day revisits the most magical and memorable moments from the national cricket team's illustrious past, mixing in a maelstrom of quirky anecdotes and legendary characters to produce an irresistibly dippable England diary - with an entry for every day of the year. From the first ever Test match in 1877 through to the Twenty20 era, England's faithful fans have witnessed world domination and tragicomic failures, grudge matches, controversy and absurdity - all present here. Timeless greats such as Ian Botham, Jack Hobbs and Fred Trueman, Denis Compton, Harold Larwood and Alastair Cook all loom larger than life. Revisit 5 January 1971, when a Melbourne Test became the first ever one-day international, 30 July 1995 when Dominic Cork took England's first hat-trick in 38 years! Or 6 September 1880, when W.G. Grace and his two brothers all made their Test debuts - two successful, one tragic.

One of cricket's great characters, Franklyn Stephenson was branded a 'rebel' for touring in apartheid South Africa with a West Indian XI. As a black sportsman, he knew his actions went against the wishes of the authorities and that there would be consequences, yet he overcame the character slurs and subsequent bans from both his beloved Barbados and the West Indian Test selectors. Recognised as the first fast bowler to develop a cunning slower ball, Stephenson became one of the world's top all-rounders. The beaming Barbadian achieved cricketing immortality in 1988 by completing the domestic Double of scoring 1,000 runs and taking 100 wickets during an English summer - a feat that is unlikely to be repeated. Read about encounters, on and off the field, with household names such as Viv Richards, Andy Roberts, Clive Lloyd and Desmond Haynes - and a lifelong friendship with Sir Garfield Sobers. From a childhood full of dramatic life experiences to the heights of one-day finals at Lord's, here is the story of an amiable cricketing giant.

Sussex and England superstar Maurice Tate's story is one of triumph and fame, controversy and tragedy. In the 1920s and 1930s, the all-rounder was the world's most popular cricketer, famed for his brilliant bowling and broad smile - unlike his infamous cricketing father, whose costly error he more than repaid. In his day, Tate's enormous feet were the subject of a music-hall song, his extra pace considered 'magical'; he's now recognised as the first proper 'seam' bowler. He took almost 2800 first-class wickets and thrilled crowds with rapid-fire sixes and centuries. But along the way he suffered a nervous breakdown at the Bodyline series, and threw beer over Douglas Jardine. After a bitter sacking by Sussex, he became a pub landlord and died in poverty. Recently voted Sussex's greatest ever player, Tate doesn't figure in any more widespread Hall of Fame. It's time to remember this forgotten great of England cricket.

Cricket is a game that has always attracted mavericks and characters. Cantankerous batsmen, lethal bowlers, criminal wicket keepers and philandering fielders feature as The Middle Stump looks at the good, the bad and the potentially dangerous of the cricket world. Dan has interviewed some of the biggest names in the game and those sitting on the knolls in the sun, and has spoken to everyone who is anyone in the cricket world. Now, based on years of cricket fandom and limited ability, he has collected the portraits of the most interesting players from recent years. Written in the same tongue-in-cheek and honest style that we have all come to love from The Middle Stump, this is a great read for all cricket fans.

A Corner of Every Foreign Field is an innovative and thought-provoking take on the history of cricket, looking beyond the scorecards to the pivotal issues of class, politics and imperialism that have shaped the game today. It charts how cricket has vied with football for power, commercial muscle and global reach, growing from a simple boys' game in England to a modern worldwide sport. In exploring cricket's evolution, Tim Brooks calls on the views and anecdotes of greats like W. G. Grace, Don Bradman, Viv Richards and Virat Kohli. Along the way, he peers deep into the game's soul and poses questions on behalf of every cricket fan. Is cricket truly global? Why did the game take root in some countries but not in others? What are the threats and opportunities for the sport? Who are the next cricket superpowers? How do you strike a balance between honouring tradition and reforming to capture the imagination of future generations? Written by an expert in the global development of cricket, the book sets out a unique vision for the future.

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.

WINNER OF THE CRICKET BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD AT THE CROSS BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2017 WINNER OF THE MCC/CRICKET SOCIETY'S BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2017 Mark Nicholas, the face of Channel 5's Cricket on Five and anchor for Channel 9's Test commentary team in Australia, has a unique knowledge and perspective on the world of cricket. As both a former player and now a professional observer and commentator on the game, he knows all the key figures of the sport and has witnessed first-hand some of cricket's greatest moments. His book is a personal account of the game as he's seen and experienced it across the globe. From epic test matches and titans of the game like Lara, Warne and Tendulkar, to his own childhood love for the sport, Mark gives us his informed, personal and fascinating views on cricket - the world's other beautiful game.

Divided Country explains how segregation and apartheid became entrenched in a unique way in cricket in South Africa between 1915 and the 1950s. While the rest of the cricket world increasingly rubbed out old dividing lines, South Africa reinforced them until seven different South Africas existed at the same time in cricket. Each of them claimed the title `South Africa' and `national'. Each ran leagues and provincial competitions and chose national teams. This book continues the task started by Cricket and Conquest (2017), which re-wrote the foundational narratives of cricket in southern Africa between 1795 and 1914. One reviewer noted it was `simply the finest book ever written about sport in South Africa'. Another that it had the effect of `bowling over prevailing histories, de-colonising existing narratives of the game ... *and+ throwing all that came before into a spin' so that `what was will never be the same'. Divided Country similarly attempts to paint an entirely new picture of cricket in South Africa during a crucial and complex period. It completely inverts previous whites-only general histories of cricket, showing that the game has an infinitely richer history than has been recorded to date. Without knowing how apartheid in cricket unfolded one cannot even begin to understand the journey the country has travelled since the 1950s, and how, slowly, painstakingly, the cricket unity we take for granted today was struggled for and constructed. This will be the explosive theme of Volume 3 of this series.

Winning takes many forms. For fans of Matthew Syed, this is a great sports book about leadership, judgement and decision-making - rooted in the theory that helped Ed Smith lead England cricket to sustained success. And to help us all win more. 'An absolutely fascinating book' THE GAME, The Times football pod How do you spot the opportunities that others miss? How do you turn a team's performance around? How do you make good decisions amid a tidal wave of information? And how can you improve? As chief selector for the England cricket team, Ed Smith pioneered new methods for building successful teams and watched his decisions tested in real time on the pitch. During his three-year tenure, England averaged 7 wins in every 10 completed matches, better than they have performed before or since. Making Decisions reveals Smith's unique approach to finding success in a fast-changing and increasingly data-reliant world. The best decisions, Smith argues, rely on a combination of differing kinds of intelligence: from algorithms to intuition. This is a truth that the most successful people know: data cannot account for everything, it must be harnessed with human insight. Whatever the power of data, humans aren't finished yet. Sharing for the first time the tools he introduced as England selector, Smith's book captures the immediacy of life at the sharp end, while also exploring frameworks from the top levels of sports, business and the arts. Decision-making is revealed as a creative enterprise, not a reductive system. Making Decisions offers an invaluable guide for those who want a better framework for developing, explaining and implementing new ideas.

'Is there anything in sport to compare with the sustained excitement of a cricket match, especially a Test match, in which the advantage continually fluctuates one way and then the other, and when the match enters its last few minutes, all four results are still possible?' After entertaining countless radio listeners around the world for decades, who better to convey the breathless drama of a Test match cliffhanger than Henry Blofeld? Now, in Ten to Win . . . and the Last Man In, he has personally selected thirty matches featuring unforgettable finishes and brought them vividly to life again in his own inimitable way. Ranging from the match-winning bowling of F.R. Spofforth against W.G. Grace's England in 1882, via the first tied Test between Benaud's Australia and Worrell's West Indies in 1960, to the never-say-die batting of Ben Stokes in 2019, he picks out the key events and performances of each memorable match and describes them as only he can. Alongside the big-hitting heroics of Jessop in 1902 and Botham in 1981, he revisits less celebrated matches such as South Africa's hard-fought first Test win in 1906, as well as a crucial innings from Denis Compton in 1948 and a match-saving performance by a young Alan Knott in Guyana in 1968 - one of the most exciting matches he has ever witnessed first-hand. Filled with colourful detail and informed by insight gained from a lifetime immersed in the sport he loves, Henry Blofeld's latest book will leave the reader in no doubt - as he himself puts it - about 'what an absurdly irresistible game cricket can be'.

The Wisden Collector's Guide is the definitive companion to one of the world's most important sporting publications. It begins with an overview of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, introducing the original John Wisdenand describing the history of the publication. The next section contains highlights and information from each of the 147 editions, including bibliographic details (page extent, price, reprints etc), excerpts from the best articles, cricketers of the year, obituaries, and noteworthy events and matches. There is also additional information of interest to collectors and historical context in the form of news 'headlines' from each year. The guide concludes with a section dedicated to the serious collector. Covering everything from reprints to rebinds and from pagination to publishers, it is a vital resource for collectors. Affording a glimpse of the cricketing and historical landscape of the last 147 years, this is an accessible and fascinating volume for cricketing fans generally and a must-have item for Wisden collectors.

*Large-format hardback edition* The 158th edition of the most famous sports book in the world - published every year since 1864 - contains some of the world's finest sports writing, and reflects on an unprecedented year dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Writers include Lawrence Booth, Sir Garfield Sobers, Ebony Rainford-Brent, Gideon Haigh, Andy Zaltzman, Tom Holland, Duncan Hamilton, Robert Winder, Matthew Engel, Scyld Berry, Derek Pringle, Jack Leach and James Anderson. As usual, Wisden includes the eagerly awaited Notes by the Editor, the Cricketers of the Year awards, and the famous obituaries. And, as ever, there are reports and scorecards for every Test, together with forthright opinion, compelling features and comprehensive records. "There can't really be any doubt about the cricket book of the year, any year: it's obviously Wisden" Andrew Baker in The Daily Telegraph @WisdenAlmanack

They are the masters of deception, the jokers in the pack; illusionists conjuring wickets out of thin air with nothing more than an ambled approach and a wonky grip. Not for them the brutish physicality of the pace bowler nor the reactive slogging of the batsman. Theirs is a more cerebral art. They stand alone in a team sport. They are Twirlymen. Having himself failed through a combination of injury and indolence to become a leg-spinner of renown, Amol Rajan pays homage to that most eccentric of all sporting heroes - the spin bowler. On a journey through cricket history Rajan introduces us to the greatest purveyors of that craft, from W. G. Grace to Graeme Swann via Clarrie Grimmet's flipper, Muttiah Muralitharan's helicopter wrist, Shane Warne's ball-of-the-century and all the rest.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CRICKET SOCIETY AND MCC BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2020 The much-loved former England player, Guardian cricket correspondent and TMS broadcaster tells the story of his life in cricket for the first time. In April 1974 new recruits Viv Richards, Ian Botham, Peter Roebuck and Vic Marks reported for duty at Somerset County Cricket Club. Apart from Richards, 'all of us were eighteen years old, though Botham seemed to have lived a bit longer - or at least more vigorously - than the rest.' In this irresistible memoir of a life lived in cricket, Vic Marks returns to the heady days when Richards and Botham were young men yet to unleash their talents on the world stage while he and Roebuck looked on in awe. After the high-octane dramas of Somerset, playing for England was almost an anti-climax for Marks, who became an unlikely all-rounder in the mercurial side of the 1980s. Moving from the dressing room to the press box, with trenchant observations about the modern game along the way, Original Spin is a charmingly wry, shrewdly observed account of a golden age in cricket.

'Crazy' Chris Lewis played in 32 Test Matches and 53 One-Day Internationals for England. At one point he was regarded as one of the best all-round cricketers the country has ever produced. However, feeling at odds with the middle-class nature of the sport, he regularly courted controversy off the field. The tabloids happily lapped up Lewis' transgressions, such as missing a Test with sunstroke, arriving late to a match due to oversleeping, as well as naming England players involved in a match-fixing scandal, something which led to his early retirement at the age of just 30. From there he became a loner, before he was arrested in 2008 for importing cocaine from the Caribbean and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In Crazy, Lewis recounts his remarkable, redemptive story, firstly as a child arriving in England from Guyana with his parents, through to his burgeoning cricketing career, international recognition, his arrest and subsequent trial, his time in prison, and how he finally put his life back together.

Get to know England legend Alastair Cook in his fascinating and remarkably honest autobiography THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'He is England's greatest ever batsman . . . a hugely enjoyable book' Daily Mail, SPORTS BOOKS OF THE YEAR _________ Watch. The. Ball. It's just you. Standing at the crease. Waiting. The bowler is running. His arm swinging. The ball - 155 grams of cork, string and leather - is hurled at you. At 90 mph it travels 22 yards in under half a second. You can barely see it and you've got to be swinging your bat before it's halfway towards you. Because you are in its path . . . Alastair Cook, one of England's most decorated players and highest test run scorer, knows what it is like to be your best under pressure. Yet at 33 he called time on his England career. Come with him as he relives the fraught hours on the pitch, the desperate lows and astonishing highs, the paralysing anxiety that can send the best back home and the extraordinary battle of wills with yourself, the opposing players and even those supposedly on your own side. This is cricket as you've never seen it. The view from the inside . . . LONGLISTED FOR THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AUTOBIOGRAPHY AWARD _________ 'Fascinating, timely. Delves into the psychological challenges of the game' Guardian 'Bracingly honest' Times

'A superb portrait of the most brilliant cricketer of his generation' Mike Atherton Shane Warne dominated cricket on the field and off for almost thirty years - his skill, his fame, his personality, his misadventures. His death in March 2002 rocked Australians, even those who could not tell a leg-break from a leg-pull. But what was it like to watch Warne at his long peak, the man of a thousands international wickets, the incarnation of Aussie audacity and cheek? Gideon Haigh saw it all, still can't quite believe it, but wanted to find a way to explain it. In this classic appreciation of Australia's cricket's greatest figure, who doubled as the nation's best-known man, Haigh relieves the highs, the lows, the fun and the follies. The result is a new way of looking at Warne, at sport and at Australia. 'Bloody brilliant... As good as anything I have read on the game' Guardian Winner of The Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year

'The funniest writer ever to put words to paper' HUGH LAURIE _____________________________________________ From his early days Wodehouse adored cricket and references to the game run like a golden thread though his writings. He not only wrote about this glorious British pastime, but also played it well, appearing six times at Lords, where his first captain was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Illustrated with wonderful drawings and contemporary score-sheets, Wodehouse at the Wicket is the first ever compendium of Wodehouse's writings on cricket. Edited by cricket historian Murray Hedgcock, this delightful book also contains fascinating facts about Wodehouse's cricketing career and how it is reflected in his work. The perfect gift for Wodehouse readers and fans of all things cricket. _____________________________________ 'You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour' STEPHEN FRY 'Immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day' MARIAN KEYES 'The greatest comic writer ever' DOUGLAS ADAMS 'P.G. Wodehouse should be prescribed to treat depression. Cheaper, more effective than valium and far, far more addictive' OLIVIA WILLIAMS

PLAYING HARD BALL is a unique sports book, a cultural comparison of two national games - cricket, English in origin and American baseball - written from the viewpoint of a top-class practitioner of both codes. Ed Smith - the young Cambridge University and Kent batsman - has spent the winters since 1998 in Spring Training with the New York Mets baseball team. It has enabled Ed to contrast and compare arguably the two most iconic of sports from the inside. In fact, baseball had a thriving following in Britain until the Great War: Derby County's former stadium was called the Baseball Ground; Tottenham Hotspur was at first a baseball club. Apart from learning two very different techniques, Ed learned that the sports' ultimate heroes, the Babe and the Don - Babe Ruth and Don Bradman - might as well have come from different planets, whilst baseball's pristine Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a far cry from the ramshackle cricket museum at Lord's. Ed Smith's PLAYING HARD BALL draws on these intriguing comparisons to paint a two-sided portrait of sports most illustrous 'hitting games'.