When the first lockdown came, finding himself without cricket for the first time in his life, Geoffrey Boycott sat down and began to write a retrospective warts-and-all diary of each of his Test match appearances.
As a cricketer, Frank Worrell mesmerised spectators with his stylish play, his elegance and his classy strokes - an artist in a realm replete with talent. Apart from that finesse on the field, he epitomised the sporting characteristics associated with the finer aspects of the game: the spirit of cricket. He relentlessly advocated for more ......
There are few better qualified to write the sequel to Alan Gibson’s masterpiece than Vic Marks, who played under four of the captains of whom he writes and has followed subsequent ones from press and radio commentary boxes. He begins this volume by reflecting on the idiosyncratic genius of Alan Gibson, whom he befriended in the writer’s later ......
He is one of the few English players with a first-class average of 40 or more not to have won a Test cap. But for a ruptured Achilles, he was told he would have been called up against West Indies in 1995. After retiring as a player aged 36, he forged a successful career as an international coach, with stints in a variety of countries including ......
When Len Hutton led the MCC to the Caribbean in 1953/54, the series was billed as the 'world championship of cricket' and described later as the most controversial since Bodyline. Who Only Cricket Know provides the first full-length account of this extraordinary tour, where a rollercoaster of a Test series was only half the story.
The best schoolboy rackets player in the country; the Sussex player whose first three first-class wickets were a hat trick of internationals; and yes, he did postpone his wedding to play his only Test for his country on the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll tour of New Zealand; the man who has injected himself as a diabetes sufferer every day for the ......
With a burgeoning reputation as one of the fastest bowlers in the land, Ellcock's hopes of playing Test cricket for England were cruelly thwarted by injury. Plunged into depression and forced to pursue another career, a childhood interest in aviation was to be his salvation. Ellcock relocated to the USA and qualified as a commercial airline pilot, ......
What - you may ask is the point of an English perspective on French sport? In David Owen's own words, "you might just as well seek out a sea otter's take on kabuki". Nevertheless, having lived upwards of ten per cent of his life in France, and a lot more than that immersed in French grammar, current affairs and culture, he offers exactly that in ......
