Cricketing Lives

Cricketing Lives
Author: Richard H. Thomas
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2022-08-22
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1789143721

As famous for its complicated rules as it is for its contentious (and lengthy) matches, cricket is the quintessentially English sport. Or is it? From cricket in literature to sticky wickets, Cricketing Lives is a paean to the quirky characters and global phenomenon that are cricket. Cricket is defined by the characters who have played it, watched it, reported it, ruled upon it, ruined it, and rejoiced in it. Humorous and deeply affectionate, Cricketing Lives tells the story of the world’s greatest and most incomprehensible game through those who have shaped it, from the rustic contests of eighteenth-century England to the spectacle of the Indian Premier League. It’s about W. G. Grace and his eye to his wallet; the invincible Viv Richards; and Sarah Taylor, “the best wicketkeeper in the world.” Richard H. Thomas steers a course through the despair of war, tactical controversies, and internecine politics, to reveal how cricket has always warmed our hearts as nothing else can.

CMJ

CMJ
Author: Christopher Martin-Jenkins
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 532
Release: 2012-04-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0857200836

Christopher Martin-Jenkins, or CMJ to his many fans as well as listeners of Test Match Special, was perhaps thevoice of cricket; an unparalleled authority whose insight and passion for cricket, as well as his style of commentary, captured what it is that makes the sport so special. In his many years as a commentator and journalist - reporting for the BBC, The Times and the Cricketeramong others - CMJ covered some of the biggest moments in the sport's history. And in this memoir he looks back on a lifetime spent in service to this most bizarre and beguiling of sports and tells the stories of the players, coaches and fans he met along the way. Recounted with all the warmth and vigour that has endeared CMJ to generations of cricket fans, this memoir relives the moments that defined modern cricket and which shaped his life in turn. It is a must-have book for all devotees of the sport.

Bowler's Name?

Bowler's Name?
Author: Tom Hicks
Publisher: eBook Partnership
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2021-04-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1785319248

Bowler's Name is a tale of a life in cricket's margins. Tom Hicks is no household name, but he often rubbed shoulders with cricketing royalty, going from the village green to walking out as captain at Lord's. As an ambitious youngster, Hicks dreamed of reaching the top. But trying to make it big and balance the demands of university, family, a full-time job and a penchant for post-match fun was no easy feat. Settling for an unglamorous life as a minor county player, cricket took him to all corners of the country, and then across the globe, getting an insight into the nether regions of a cricketing world that was rapidly vanishing. Through the eyes of a cricket nut, Bowler's Name takes us on a journey of success, failure, hilarity and often sheer madness. If you've ever wondered what it's like to face 90mph bowling, to have lunch with Mike Gatting or to infiltrate an England post-match party, Hicks is your man. Bowler's Name is for fans of cricket idiosyncrasies, lovers of the underdog and anyone who has tried and failed.

The Picador Book of Cricket

The Picador Book of Cricket
Author: Ramachandra Guha
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 598
Release: 2016-06-30
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1509841407

A tribute to the finest writers on the game of cricket and an acknowledgement that the great days of cricket literature are behind us. There was a time when major English writers – P. G. Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alec Waugh – took time off to write about cricket, whereas the cricket book market today is dominated by ghosted autobiographies and statistical compendiums. The Picador Book of Cricket celebrates the best writing on the game and includes many pieces that have been out of print, or difficult to get hold of, for years. Including Neville Cardus, C. L. R. James, John Arlott, V. S. Naipaul, and C. B. Fry, this anthology is a must for any cricket follower or anyone interested in sports writing elevated to high art.

University Cricket and Emerging Adulthood

University Cricket and Emerging Adulthood
Author: Harry C. R. Bowles
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2018-04-10
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 3319762826

This book provides a detailed ethnographic account of the lives and experiences of a group of male, university-based academy cricketers transitioning into (and away from) professional sport. Set in one of the six university centres of cricket excellence established by the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2000 as a pathway into professional cricket, the study examines the nature of the university cricket experience in relation to a process of occupational identity-exploration and development. Through a series of empirical insights, the author illustrates the tension between aspiration and reality players encountered in deciding whether cricket, as an occupation and future identity-commitment, was right for them. In so doing, the book reveals the questions of identity generated by players’ interactions with their cricketing environment relating to their lives as student-cricketers and as young people. University Cricket and Emerging Adulthood will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, sport coaching, sport policy and leisure studies.

Cricket: The Game of Life

Cricket: The Game of Life
Author: Scyld Berry
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2015-09-10
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1473618576

Winner of the Cricket Writers' Club Book of the Year 2016 Shortlisted for the MCC Book of the Year Shortlisted for Cricket Book of the Year at the Sports Book Awards Scyld Berry draws on his experiences as a cricket writer of forty years to produce new insights and unfamiliar historical angles on the game, along with moving reflections on episodes from his own life. The author covers a range of themes including cricket in different areas of the world, and abstract concepts such as language, numbers, ethics and psychology; Scyld Berry relishes the joys cricket provides and is convinced of the positive effect it can have in people's lives. Cricket: The Game of Life is an inspiring book that reminds readers why they love the game and prompts them to look at it in a new way.

Modernity At Large

Modernity At Large
Author: Arjun Appadurai
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1996
Genre: Civilization, Modern
ISBN: 9781452900063

My Life in Cricket

My Life in Cricket
Author: Fred Titmus
Publisher: Blake Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005
Genre: Cricket
ISBN: 9781844541249

Born on a council estate in London's King's Cross, Fred showed an incredible aptitude both as batsman and bowler from an early age. From these humble beginnings he began his lifelong involvement with the game, first as a player, then coach and finally as an England selector. His incredible rise through the ranks of the cricketing establishment was even more remarkable given his background and the class divisions that once characterised British cricket. His career has been as eventful off the pitch as it has been on. When playing with Ted Dexter, Dexter once insisted he and Fred opened the innings in a Test match, so they could have the afternoon free to go racing at Cheltenham, and, after losing four toes in 1968, Titmus confounded all predictions by returning to first class cricket seven weeks later. Fred Titmus: A Life in Cricket is a remarkable testament to an extraordinary man.

Beyond a Boundary

Beyond a Boundary
Author: Cyril Lionel Robert James
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 1993
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780822313830

In C. L. R. James's classic Beyond a Boundary, the sport is cricket and the scene is the colonial West Indies. Always eloquent and provocative, James--the "black Plato," (as coined by the London Times)--shows us how, in the rituals of performance and conflict on the field, we are watching not just prowess but politics and psychology at play. Part memoir of a boyhood in a black colony (by one of the founding fathers of African nationalism), part passionate celebration of an unusual and unexpected game, Beyond a Boundary raises, in a warm and witty voice, serious questions about race, class, politics, and the facts of colonial oppression. Originally published in England in 1963 and in the United States twenty years later (Pantheon, 1983), this second American edition brings back into print this prophetic statement on race and sport in society.