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Cricket Books

stumpski

stumpski

International Captain
SJS said:
Other than Freeman and Bosanquet who else if there to compare with? Freeman doesn't have a great test record and Bosanquet without the novelty of his wrong one may not have been under discussion.

Where are the great leg spinners from England? So it is really between him and Freeman and from whatever I have read the opinion is divided on the matter.
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Well after those three you are really into the likes of Peebles (rated highly by DGB I know), Mitchell, Hollies and Robins, and not many more. England's greatest spinners have been orthodox finger spinners, Rhodes, Laker, Verity, Underwood and so on. And there's a case for saying that Underwood was really a medium-pacer, but that's another story. I assume he wrote an autobiography at some stage but I can't recall seeing one.


Incidentally, on the subject of England 'leggies' one of my favourite Golden Age players is Douglas Ward Carr, picked for his only Test in 1909 at the age of 37 - he took 7 for 282 in the match. When Arthur Carr was appointed as captain of England 17 years later, Lord Harris remarked "Carr ... ah Carr, bit old, but Kent, we can't go wrong there."
 
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fredfertang

fredfertang

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
There is a 1975 autobiography from Underwood called "Beating the Bat"

I'd have thought a full biog was long overdue - after all we've had two of Colin Blythe in the last four years - or does that mean we'll get a couple on "Deadly" come the end of this century?

As to the best English leggie its a toss up between Dick Tyldesley and Tommy Greenhough :ph34r:
 
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W

wisden18

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
I was at the Cricket Book Awards last night, which was rather good. The 4 books on the short-list were:

Life Beyond the Airing Cupboard by John Barclay

Pommies: England Cricket Through an Australian Lens by William Buckland

Captain of the Crowd by Tony Laughton

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

And the winner was . . . John Barclay's book "Life Beyond the Airing Cupboard". Good range of books on the shortlist, I though, although would have loved to have seen Pommies win, I think it's an absolutely great book. Still, nice "safe" choice in the winner I suppose.
 
stumpski

stumpski

International Captain
Surprised to see Netherland on the shortlist I have to say. Not that the cricket was entirely peripheral, but for a novel to make such a list it would have had to be far more cricket-based, I'd have thought.
 
stumpski

stumpski

International Captain
I haven't read William Buckland's book, and I'm not sure I want to. I can imagine what it's like:

English cricket is rubbish.

Tear it all up and start again.

Scrap all the counties.

Have six teams, like Australia does.

Do everything else the way that Australia does.

Then you might start winning a few games.

Looking forward to seeing it reviewed on here to see if that's a close approximation. :)
 
aussie

aussie

Hall of Fame Member
Slightly OT...

My Old man brought home a DVD last night "GREATEST MOMENTS OF INDIAN CRICKET 1932-1986".

Had some lovely clips of Amar Singh & Mankad bowling, while i see why SJS was all cocu about Vishwanth - he does look like a laxman with better technique.

On Amar Singh, he barely ran up to the crease & bowled. Looked like a poor man's Alec Bedser...
 
stumpski

stumpski

International Captain
Took delivery of a new book this week - From Grace to Ramprakash by Patrick Murphy, from Stephen Chalke's publishers Fairfield. You won't be surprised to hear it looks a quality item. :) Will tell all in due course, obviously.
 
SJS

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
I have received my first old book by a really old New Zealand cricketer today. Was It All Cricket the Autobiography of Daniel Reese.

Born in 1879, Reese played his club cricket in Christchurch (for Midland Club) and for Canterbury.

He left for England and played for MCC at the turn of the last century. Warner rated him one of the greatest fielders of all time.

I have been trying to get and read old cricket books about New Zealand and South Africa of late and have been greatly rewarded in the latter by my discovery of books by Louis Duffus and Dudley Carew. Hope this is equally satisfying.
 
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