What are your favourite cricket books?

Rain Men is a personal favourite too Will. One of the funniest books I have read. Most others cricket books are routinely awful, although I have a couple of essay collections that have their moments.

The Art of Cricket by Don Bradman is a must read for anyone who plays. In shape it is no more than a manual, but it celebrates thinking about the game and the unorthodox, over coaching, and is imbued throughout by a love of the topic.

Any conversation about cricket books has to start with Beyond a Boundary. An extraordinary work on so many levels – and proof that it’s perfectly ok to be a socialist and cricket lover!!

Gideon Haigh’s book about the Packer Affair is worth reading.

Absolutely anything that has John Arlott’s name on the front cover is a ‘must read’ – even if its title is ‘Flower Arranging in the 17th Century’… Best cricket journalist ever. His biog of Fred Truemen is a good place to start.

Peter Obornes book about the D’oliveira scandal is an excellent read. It’s always nice when someone from the right of the political spectrum takes a well aimed pop at the cricketing establishment.

Every cricket bookshelf needs to have at least one Wisden. Any issue edited by Matthew Engel will have it’s priorities right, and one covering an Ashes victory will keep you smiling during the winter months, so why not buy the current edition?

Finally, Duncan Fletcher’s book about the Ashes tests last year is really the only book you need about that series. The thought of Ponting and Co being made to read it makes me smile – a bit like the Pope being forced to read ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’!

Simon Hughes’ ‘A Lot of Hard Yakka’ is a great read, and so is ‘Morning Everyone’ of you are interested in cricket, TV and journalism.

Enjoying the blog.

Simon Rae’s sturdy ‘WG Grace’ is excellent, and I’m currently reading Rae’s ‘It’s Not Cricket’, a blow-by-blow account of cheating, ball-tampering and the like which is particularly apt this week.

Other fine cricket books:

‘Bodyline Autopsy’ by David Frith is about as measured an account of the Bodyline series as you’ll find. I think Frith is an Anglo-Australian, which probably helps.

Gideon Haigh’s stuff; there is an excellent collection called ‘Game For Anything’.

Of recent ex-players’ autobiographies, Atherton’s ‘Opening Up’ is eloquent and a lot less grumpy than his reputation would suggest. It all depends on whether you can stomach reliving such an abysmal period in English cricketing history. And Nasser Hussain’s book, while a bit patchy and repetitive, is touching in its soul-baring.

Oh, and if you want history I would suggest Derek Birley’s ‘A Social History Of English Cricket’, which is quite dense but worth the effort, or ‘Barclays World Of Cricket’, an encyclopedia-style book published a couple of times in the 80s that can be found quite easily at second-hand bookstores. There is a red version and a green version; the red is the later one, I think. The history chapters are good.

Don’t you agree, though, that it’s rather early and unseemly for players like Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pieterson to be (ghost)writing autobiogs? I recall Ponting had one out after he’d been playing test cricket for just a few years.

surely Mike Brieleys “The Art of Captaincy”. I remeber reading it just after I had given up captaining my teams 2nd XI and thinking I could have done with reading it before I took on the job and not after.

Its a serious book and has lots of advice not just about cricket but organising and managing in general. Help I sound like the blurb on the back cover now.

Thanks everyone.

I actually don’t have a problem with Strauss and KP ‘writing’ autobiographies. I mean obviously they’re fundamentally commercial exercises and are unlikely to provide enormous insight, but I don’t think it’s inherently too early. You could easily write a whole book just about the Ashes, so there’s enough material there. Perhaps that’s what they should have done. Or perhaps we need a new word instead of ‘autobiography’.

On which subject, I picked up Michael Atherton’s book, Opening Up, from one of those book exchange places on holiday, and thought that was definitely above-average.

On the subject of ‘Balham to Bollywood’, if there are any cricket fans who haven’t seen the movie in question, Lagaan, you really should. It’s fabulous.

Great list of books, and great blog!

Agree with Rob Cornelius about Brearley’s The Art of Captaincy. Fascinating book.

And – sheepishly, as I work for the publisher – for anyone who likes Markus Berkmann’s books, you should read Penguins Stopped Play by Harry Thompson. He played in the same team as MB before they had a big falling-out, then took his lot off on a round-the-world tour (including Antarctica, hence the title). Very funny book.

Finally, don’t ever read Boycott’s autobiography. You will lose the will to live, guaranteed.

Agree with Jim about the Simon Wilde book.

There’s a great chapter in it that effectively puts you in the position of opening for England with Geoff Boycott in the early 80’s in a Test against the West Indies – Garner, Marshall, Holding, Daniel etc. hair raising stuff.

Anyone tried ploughing through Steve Waugh’s autobiography yet? I had trouble picking it up, let alone opening it!

My favourite cricket book is either Zimmer men(haven’t read rain men) or a lot of hard yakka.

Beyond a Boundary was far too much about polotics.

This is the sort of thing Steve Waugh comes out with in his autobiography: -

“Next ball from Gough went into the covers for a single – I went down the wicket and told my brother, Mark, that he wasn’t backing up far enough and that he’d need to go down to the practice area after he was out to measure out his optimal backing up distance for a bowler of Goughs pace and accuracy.

I then went back to the non-strikers end and psychologically intimidated Gough for a few seconds. I then turned to continue the campaign of mental distintergration on Mike Atherton who was fielding too deep at mid-on. I remembered that Atherton had drifted about five yards too deep in the Sydney Test a few years before which meant that I’d managed to take a sharply taken two, rather than just a single, to a ball from Andy Caddick – runs that took me from 45 to 47. I’d pointed this out to Atherton when he came into our dressing room for a beer after the game, and then again an hour later as the England squad were boarding their coach back to the hotel. later I phoned Atherton at the hotel to remind him of our earlier conversation, but somewhat rudely I thought, he refused to take the call. You should never be too proud to listen to advice…”

(Save your money!)

I haven’t managed to get hold of Rain Men, but did find Zimmer Men in the UK last weekend which I’ve just started. I finished Penguins Stopped Play (on the train this morning!) by Harry Thompson which was fun. It’s going to be weird to read what the two have to say about each other.