Posted by Our book, The 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments, has now been officially released. You can (and should) buy it – it’s very funny. We can say that without being immodest because for all you know we might be solely referring to the bits co-author Dan Liebke wrote. (We’re not. Our bits are hilarious too.)
The book was inspired by the podcast we do together, which was in turn inspired by a bunch of articles we wrote for Cricket365 during the 2019 Ashes.
It is not a complicated premise. We’ve ranked the 50 most ridiculous Ashes moments of the last 50 years and we count them down, telling you a bit about each one. Fun stuff.
Some things covered in the book
- Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Andrew Strauss scoring a zillion runs at the Gabba
- Steve Waugh batting on one leg
- Sarah Taylor’s wicketkeeping/slip fielding
- James Vince not nicking one
- Beefy
- 45 other things – quite a lot more actually because we generally crowbarred multiple events into each ‘moment’
It’s such a good book, you should probably buy several copies and give them to people for Christmas.
That relative of yours who’s kind of into cricket? They’ll love it! Especially the muppet joke. That line alone makes it a thing worth owning. Imagine living in a house where the muppet joke wasn’t inside one of your books. Sad.
So buy the book, ideally from bookshop.org but we aren’t going to complain if you buy it from somewhere else.
If you have any further questions, they will definitely be answered here:
So, to reiterate: The 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments is out today. That might come as a surprise given it seems to have been available for a week or more. It’s not been an explosive launch. With the Australian launch in October; Amazon going with that same date1; bookshop.org apparently sending out some copies early; and several outlets already having sold out, it’s instead rather dribbled out, like old man’s urine.
But everyone agrees it’s definitely out now. None of that placing an order even though it won’t turn up for three weeks nonsense. You can buy it now!
And, quite genuinely, please act sooner rather than later. The situation across various retailers doesn’t smack of widespread UK availability.
- Bookshop.org – in stock,
dispatches within 3-5 daysnow says it dispatches within three weeks - Amazon – certainly in stock with some of its Marketplace retailers, but delivery time predictions are all over the place
- TGJones/WHSmith – out of stock
- Awesome Books –
out of stockin stock again! - Blackwell’s – in stock, usually dispatched within 7 days
If you’re in Australia, Dan’s got a bunch of southern hemisphere links for you.
- Choosing whatever geographical jurisdiction suits it best is at least consistent with its approach to paying tax. ↩︎
England’s Co-author King Complainer is still smarting from delivery-gate, wondering why the Aussies were, as usual, streets ahead – on this occasion in the matter of dispatching Ridiculous Ashes Moments books…
We tried to bully them into releasing it later because we didn’t feel it was in the spirit of cricket.
Wanton disregard of fair play and the basic tenets of decency.
You clearly indicated where the line was, but those brazen Aussies just crossed the line as if it were some sort of pompous fiction. The fiends.
To be fair, ambiguity about being out or not being out is pretty appropriate for the book.
The Big Waterstones In Town is still mid-refurb, incidentally, so I have been unable to ascertain if they have a copy as all the sections are being moved around and when I went in yesterday the upstairs bit was so chaotic I briefly wondered if I was actually allowed to be up there.
I have encouraged at least one other person to purchase a copy – although they were mainly impressed by who the foreword was by. If this proves to be a big selling point then maybe for the next edition the ‘foreword by Pat Cummins’ will be in larger font than the actual authors’ names….
Fine work!
Not yet seen any signs Waterstone’s have taken copies. Pretty sure they haven’t.
I’ve added it to my Christmas list with your link…
Scholar and a gent!
Daisy reliably informs me that my copy of Ridiculous Ashes Moments arrived in Noddyland yesterday.
Apparently it was delivered to the wrong house, but, happily for us, it went to a neighbour whom we know well, and for whom, coincidentally, we also sometimes receive letters and packages wrongly delivered. It must be frightfully difficult to read two numbers as part of an address label and get both of them right, while simultaneously shoving the addressed thing into a letterbox at speed. A bit like bowling the ball fast and then having to take a return catch.
Your problem, KC, is that I was at a dinner last night, where I was very kindly given a pristine hand-me-down copy of “In the Eye Of The Typhoon” – Frank Tyson’s account of the 1954/55 Ashes tour.
I’m torn as to which of these great tomes to start tackling first. Daisy thinks we should start with the Tyson, as, later this month, we are going to meet Richard Whitehead and hear about his book about that 1954/55 tour. “I need to mug up”, said Daisy.
Your advice, KC, as always, will be gratefully received.
We’d say get stuck into Typhoon and forget about your copy of The Ridiculous Ashes. Ideally forget about it so fully and comprehensively that you mistakenly believe you never bought a copy and subsequently take steps to rectify that.
They’re nicely complementary tomes though in that ours only covers the last 50 years (except for the Centenary Test chapter, which obviously warrants a bit of back story). Hope you enjoy them both!
So, is it out today, or what? I wasn’t sure, reading the article.
It continues to be out. As for when it was first out? That’s another matter.
Laurence Elderbrook = Ted Dexter!
Wouldn’t say that was the full equation, but it does feel like Ted’s in there with a few others.