Cricket books | reviews and recommendations

Winning the Ashes Down Under by Andrew Strauss with Simon Hughes

One of our jobs is to read all the cricket news. As a result of this, cricket books covering recent events aren’t all that appealing to us. When we’re presented with familiar information, our brain tends to drift off and do something else, leaving our eyes to do the reading unsupported.

Still, if anyone knows anything about the last Ashes series that we don’t know, it’s Andrew Strauss, so we thought we’d give this a go. It does suffer a little from the fact that he’s still playing and so can’t really lay into anyone or make any particularly jaw-dropping revelations, but it’s still a decent read.

It’s helped by the fact that it’s a good story. We don’t mean that in the one-eyed ‘go England’ sense. We mean that it’s the story of a team that goes from being bowled out for 51 by West Indies – which is where the story starts – to recording a pretty damn amazing victory in a place where most England teams have died whimpering. That’s the climax. There’s also a slightly off-kilter prolonged epilogue that covers the World Cup, which is less joyous, but equally enlightening.

However, the story’s well-known, so the extent to which you enjoy this book will probably depend on how closely you followed the goings-on leading up to and during the Ashes series. We followed that period pretty intently and we still got a fair bit out of this book. It was nothing major, just a slightly different view of a few of the players based on pretty minor anecdotes. We like that stuff though. It fleshes out the characters we see on TV.

Finally, if you don’t buy it, this book is worth finding in a book shop so that you can see the astonishing picture of a mustachioed Kevin Pietersen in the player profiles section at the end. It’s probably the best mugshot we’ve ever seen.

Buy Winning the Ashes Down Under from Amazon

Crickileaks by Alan Tyers

Do you know Alan Tyers’ work? You can probably make your own mind up about this book if you do. Crickileaks is what you would expect from him.

The fake diary is Alan Tyers’ thing. He’s done them for Cricinfo and The Wisden Cricketer (now The Cricketer) many times before and that is what this book is, a collection of fake player diaries.

It’s basically a device that allows him to make fun of some aspect of that player’s character. Our favourites are when the subject is a little unexpected, like the Nawab of Pataudi or other historical figures such as Bradman, who is portrayed as being cricket-crazed, oblivious to others and a little bit autistic.

Less good are those that target the obvious. Harmison gets homesick, Freddie likes a drink etc. It doesn’t feel like the effort’s been put into those. We were also a little disappointed that each diary is only two pages long. That’s okay for some subjects, but others seem to fade away just as they’re getting going and the book can feel a bit flimsy as a result.

Overall, it’s good. WG Grace Ate My Pedalo is better, but Crickileaks is probably worth getting, if only for the two pages detailing the extent of Douglas Jardine’s hatred of all things Australian. That poor koala will never be the same again.

Buy Crickileaks from Amazon

Ashes 2011 by Gideon Haigh | book review

If you spend much time reading about cricket, you will know Gideon Haigh. He is the cricket writer whose arse is most frequently kissed by other cricket writers.

But why is this? Why is Gideon Haigh so highly regarded? Having just read Ashes 2011, the answer is fairly clear. He thinks about what to say and then he thinks about how he says it.

It’s not writing that blows you away. It’s not like a Shahid Afridi innings. It’s more like an Alastair Cook knock, even if that sounds a bit unflattering. What we mean is that good decisions are made repeatedly and there’s never any laziness.

You won’t get anything faintly resembling a cliché from Haigh, so your mind never wanders. Everything is expressed simply, but in a fresh way. This keeps you hooked, no matter what the subject. The proof of this is that while books about cricket series aren’t our bucket of chicken, we read this far quicker than most we’ve reviewed.

To prove Haigh’s consistency, we’ll pick some pages at random and we guarantee that there’ll be a decent turn of phrase on each one.

Page 21: “Above all, where is the spin to come from, the incumbent Nathan Hauritz suddenly looks like an outcumbent.”

Page 139: “Trouble proverbially comes in threes, and so it has for Ponting: batting, bowling and fielding.”

Page 201: “When he’s in the mood, he just stays and stays and stays, his objective of long-term settlement somehow expressed in the repeated furrowing of his guard, where he might be intending to plant a row of beans.”

In writing terms, it’s just doing the basics well. But that’s surprisingly rare.

As for the subject matter, you know the events, so you’re looking for insights. Haigh isn’t a full-time cricket writer, so he’s perhaps less influenced by the press box, which can only be a good thing. He has his own opinions – a belief that young Australian players such as Phil Hughes are being overhyped being one that recurs.

The book is actually a compilation of his columns and articles and it’s interesting to read them with the benefit of hindsight. As we said earlier, books about past sporting events don’t particularly appeal to us, but we still recommend this because Haigh’s writing makes subject matter far less important. He could write a book about differential pressure sensors and it would be readable. Buy it from Amazon.

WG Grace Ate My Pedalo | book review

You, King Cricket reader, will love WG Grace Ate My Pedalo. We are pretty much certain of that.

You may all be very different, but you all have one thing in common – this website. Alan Tyers’ book is not a million miles away from what you might expect to see here.

It is basically a spoof 1896 issue of The Wisden Cricketer, but better than that sounds. Imagine what the Victorians might think of modern cricket – that’s basically the vibe.

Favourite sections are many and include an advertisement for the ‘Indian Territories Pre-eminent League’; 24 hours in the life of the Reverend ML Hayden (”Pray to God for a bit, but this degenerates into a sledging contest”); and a delightfully demented work of sporting fiction about vampires at Lord’s – part bloodsucker drama, part Victorian cricket story.

WG Grace Ate My Pedalo also features our favourite ever use of the word ‘harlot’. Buy it from Amazon. It is, frankly, mint.

A Fan’s Guide to World Cricket | book review

A Fan’s Guide to World Cricket is basically a book with which you’ll idly plan holidays. It’s full colour, looks amazing and makes you wish you were overseas even more than you already do.

It covers 55 cities, all of which feature an international cricket ground. You’ll basically leaf through the book, see a picture of somewhere amazing and then think about when you might visit. Unlike other travel books, you’ll also know that you’ll be able to watch cricket on this holiday, so that saves a bit of time.

For each city, there are facts about the ground, a bit of info about the place, average weather conditions and three suggestions of non-cricket things to do. It’s not a wealth of information, but it’s a book you browse, rather than one you use for in-depth planning.

It seems well researched. We checked what we knew and sized up the Manchester page. The caption “Manchester has a rich music history and attracts top bands such as Coldplay” worried us immensely, but the main text namechecks The Buzzcocks and Joy Division among other bands, which is pretty good for a book like this.

Irrelevant Joy Division fact: We were feeding a friend’s cat in Macclesfield the other day when a tourist asked us if we knew where Ian Curtis’s street was. We did, because we’d just been feeding a cat there. “Probably going there for the same reason, eh?” he guessed. Being as we’d been feeding a cat and he’d come to ghoulishly gawp at a house where a man killed himself, you’d have to say he couldn’t have got that more wrong.

Anyway, A Fan’s Guide to World Cricket is a book you’d be happy owning, although we’re not quite sure who’d be moved to go out and buy it.

It might be a good present though. You can buy it from Amazon if you’ve someone it’ll suit.

When Freddie Became Jesus by Jarrod Kimber | book review

First, a disclaimer: we went to Jarrod’s wedding. Set against that is the fact that he’s Australian, so we probably average out as being impartial.

People always talk about the swearing and the sex references when they talk about Jarrod’s writing. Jarrod himself often plays up to this, but he’s doing himself a disservice in doing so. It makes it sound gimmicky, when it’s nothing of the sort. The truth is, he’s a sharp writer and the occasional ‘fucken’ is just window dressing.

When Freddie Became Jesus is about the 2009 Ashes, but it’s best when it’s not about that. The parts about the action itself, while energetically-described, are the weakest parts of the book, because the series is in the past now. It’s far better when he can draw conclusions that still ring true.

He deflates Australian pundits who talk up once-in-a-generation cricketers by pointing out that there were no fewer than five once-in-a-generation cricketers in the 2009 Ashes squad and for someone who would hate to be called politically correct, Jarrod can’t bear the one-dimensional look of the Npower girls:

They’re such great role models for young girls coming to the cricket for the first time: be white, dye your hair blonde, remain under size-12 and apply fake tan and you too can be popular at the cricket.

There’s also a nice running joke about Phil Hughes’s inane contributions on Twitter. “Need to dig deep today.”

The book builds to a climax with the series going to the last match, the wedding in the offing and Jarrod’s media exposure going through the roof (or at least into the loft).

If you buy When Freddie Became Jesus, you will enjoy it. We can’t state it much better than that.

When Freddie Became Jesus

Jarrod Kimber from Cricket With Balls has written another book. We’ve not actually read it yet, but we feel we’re on pretty safe ground recommending it. If you’ve read his site, you know the kind of thing to expect.

The book is about the 2009 Ashes series and being as Jarrod’s Australian, it must have been pretty tough for him to spend so long writing about what was a pretty humiliating defeat for his side. We think you should buy the book on that basis alone.

Plus, it’s only seven quid in hardback, which is a bloody good deal.

Ask Bearders by Bill Frindall | book review

We were supposed to review this ages ago. Note to publishers: don’t push cricket stuff during the Ashes. We know it’s the cricket Christmas, but everyone’s a bit busy.

Ask Bearders is subtitled Answers to the World’s Most Challenging Cricket Questions. It’s a compilation of Bill Frindall’s columns for the BBC where he answered mostly statistical questions posed by readers.

We expected not to like it, because questions like ‘who were the first 10 bowlers to bowl a thousand maidens in Tests?’ leave us cold. While there is a lot of that, there are also a fair few decent questions and Frindall’s answers often lighten up some of the drearier ones.

To a question about an innings played by Test Match Special’s Jonathan Agnew, Frindall’s response starts: ‘No-one in their right mind should remember anything about the batsmanship of Jon Agnew.’

The book also taught us that David Lloyd’s nickname is ‘because his profile, involving a prominent probscis, is not unlike that of animation characters called ‘Bumblies’ featured in one of the late Michael Bentine’s children’s television programmes’.

Because of its format, you can’t read much of this book in one go, but it’s good to dip in and out of. We recommend keeping it in a place where you might regularly find yourself sitting down for five or ten minutes at a time with nothing to keep you occupied. We won’t name that place.

Get Ask Bearders from Amazon here.

Reviews of No Boundaries by Ronnie Irani

At what point does a book become so bad that you actually find yourself wanting to read it?

There are some great reviews of Ronnie Irani’s book, No Boundaries, on Amazon:

“I once bought a Man United shirt with the name of Keith Gillespie on the back days before the club swapped him for Andy Cole. At the time I was skint and devastated by the wasted cash. I thought nothing could top that… In the last 14 years nothing has. Until now.”

That was a one star review. In all there are 19 one star reviews, two five star reviews and nothing in between.

Here’s another one star:

“This is by some margin the worst book I’ve ever read.”

And another:

“I would rather read the back of a crisp packet.”

It’s not all bad, though:

“Although devoid of any real content, interesting anecdotes, humour etc you don’t get his voice grating on you.”

After reading all of the reviews, we find that Irani’s book has gone beneath being so bad we want to read it, so we’re going to give it a miss.

Cricket, Lovely Cricket? by Lawrence Booth | book review

While Lawrence Booth’s posts sometimes nestle next to ours on the Wisden Cricketer blog, we’ve never actually spoken to him, so you can be assured of our impartiality.

Cricket, Lovely Cricket? An Addict’s Guide To The World’s Most Exasperating Game is officially recommended.It’s kind of an overview of the game as it currently stands; a primer to tell you everything you really need to know. Not the rules or the records, but the culture of the game.

As we read it, we continually thought it was the kind of book we’d try and foist onto a friend who didn’t like the sport to trick them into entering our world. ‘See, it’s not shit,’ would be our implicit message. But if you’re worried it’s a book for those new to cricket, it’s not.

We probably read more cricket writing than most, but there were plenty of good stories in here that we’d never heard before and Booth’s also a writer who’s not averse to sneaking out the kinds of stories that cricketers and cricket writers usually keep to themselves.

A man who writes a chapter on the language of cricket has to know the clichés well enough to steer clear of them and Booth is a writer who seems like he thinks about each of his sentences. We’re not sure he could write a duff cricket book. Buy it from Amazon, if you haven’t got a copy already.