Test Match Special - What is the greatest cricket book?

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

2026 is the National Year of Reading and to mark the event the TMS team debate which is the best cricket book of all time?From the iconic “Beyond a Boundary” by CLR James to Harry Thompson’s “Penguins Stopped play”. From Duncan Hamilton’s biography of Harold Larwood to the groundbreaking autobiography of Marcus Trescothick “Coming Back to me”.Daniel Norcross is joined by award winning writer Simon Wilde, journalist and vociferous reader Jim Wallace and author and broadcaster Annie Chave who is also a judge for the Cricket Writers' Club Book of the Year. We also hear from Andy Zaltzman, Michael Vaughan, Jonathan Agnew, Jeremy Coney, and Simon Mann on their favourite cricket booksThe 2026 National Year of Reading is the biggest campaign in a generation designed to help more people to discover or rediscover the joy of reading with the theme to “Go all in” on passions and interests.

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From the iconic Beyond a boundary by CLR James to Harry Thompson's Penguin Stop Play about amateur cricketers and their crazy travails, from Duncan Hamilton's biography of the great Harold Larwood from around these parts to the groundbreaking autobiography of Marcus Drosthic coming back to me made talking about mental health in cricket I suppose possible in a way that it hadn't been before and we've been asking you what is your favourite book

but what makes a good cricket book? I'm very delighted to say I'm joined by Simon Wilde who has won numerous awards for books like The Tour the story of the England cricket team England, the biography, I thought it was a terrific title, and Chasing Jessop, the mystery of England cricket's oldest record,

which is a truly fabulous book, came out last year. Annie Chavez is alongside us as well, the author of Cricket Change My Life, which is a sort of compendium of 11 people's views or how cricket has changed their lives. It's an absolutely beautiful book. She's also a Cricket Writers' Club

Book of the Year, Judge, and has been for the last two years. And also, I've got alongside me, freelance cricket writer, a voracious reader of cricket books, and also one-time housemate of mine for all of 10 days in Brisbane. What a time. What a time that was to be alive. Jim Wallace.

Now, before I come to you all, we've had so many responses. I want to just name a few. The first one I got here, and I've forgotten this book, but it's brilliant, is another bloody tour by Francis Edmonds, Phil Edmonds' wife, about touring the West Indies. That's a great read. I've got The Lady Bird Book of Cricket. That was probably the very first book.

that I got when I was about six, which in its brief length and pocketable format, provides the most perfect and simple explanation of the game for neophytes of any age, says Richard Guy from Woolwich. Ian from Sudbury, Mike Brearley's The Art of Captainscy, is both a great book, a wonderful book about leadership, and also Alan Ross's account of the 54-55 Tour of Australia he loves, as well as Simon Jones' lot of hard yakour, which he says is both a great piece of writing,

and open up the realities of the county game. That was by Simon Hughes, of course. There's been a few books on the 54-55 tour. We had one last year from Richard Whitehead, which was brilliant and won awards. Let's start with Simon, because Simon, you have written, you told me 13 books. Does it feel like more?

Because you've been doing it pretty much every year for two or three decades. Yes, I don't know, why have I written so many books? I think I grew up in a half. household full of books because my father was an English teacher in Leeds. He loved cricket and he loved books and he had a lot of cricket books. So I think when I was absorbing cricket as a youngster, the writing or the reading of it about it was always part of the process really. It wasn't just about watching it and playing it. It was reading about it as well. So I think he

instilled my love of books really. Did you have favourite readers or favourite topics? Before we did this segment, I was thinking about how you might describe cricket literature because it's so wide-ranging, you know. You yourself have written books that are the macro, England, the biography, and then the micro chasing Jessett, which is all about one innings. And we've got all points in between. So are you in, obviously you're infused by the lot, but was it writers that sucked you in, or was it topics and ideas? I think it was writers, really. I used to, I mean, I read Cardus books, my father had a lot of Cardus books. A.A. Thompson, and you don't hear about him very much.

He read a lot of lovely books, really, about cricket and cricketers, Yorkshire, Northern cricketers particularly. So, yeah, it was the books, really, that got me into cricket as much as anything. Last, for the moment, do you have a favourite? I mean, they're all your children, these 18 books. Oh, of mine. Of your own, of your own, which is the one that you've most enjoyed putting together, do you think? I think the Jetta one, actually, because it wasn't a book.

I think I've spoken to me about this before. I wasn't intending to write a book about him. It was only when I sort of found this newspaper cutting that showed that maybe it wasn't 76 balls, as we understood. I got lured in and then I ended up writing this book quite quickly, not ever intending to do it, really. So I sort of have an affection for that. But, no, I think England had the biography, because it was such a big subject,

and I wasn't sure I could ever sort of wrestle it to the ground, really, as a topic was so big. So that was pleasing to do. And it's sort of what, you know, I've done for the last 30 years. following the England team around the world. So that book was a sort of bringing all those strands together, I suppose. Jim, we often say in cricket that cricket is this wonderful, fertile ground for literature. We sort of just accept it as a fact, you know, because we can reel off the names of people like CLR, James, Derek Burley, Neville Cardas, you know, Duncan Hamilton. And they all trip off the tongue.

And we take it as read that actually cricket is the sport that's got the richest literature. Is it true? And if so, why do you think it's cricket that's done this? I mean, I think it definitely is true. I'm obviously biased, but I've read more cricket books than I have about other sport. But tennis has this great sort of literary heritage. I speak to a lot of tennis writers. They would probably say that tennis is.

I actually read a tennis book called Levels of the Game, which is a famous tennis book, which takes a match between Arthur Ash and another tennis player. I can't remember. But it's almost point by point. and then it goes off into their autobiographies and their stories and how they reach the point to come to this match. And I thought that was actually a great idea for a cricket book.

You take an innings, say Joe Root, when he takes on Sachin Tendulke or whatever, and it's his innings, but you weave in his story. And obviously, there are the literary heritage, and then there's the autobiographies, the straight-up player ones when they finish. But I think because cricket is, it has that tradition of, it goes right back, so it spans a whole lot of eras of, you know, of social history as much as anything and takes in the wars.

And you can learn so much about life from cricket. So, you know, there's so many parallels. It's a game of failure. So, you know, someone like me who sort of leans onto that melancholy side of things, you know, a cricket book is always good to dip into because it sort of teaches you about life, I think. One of the great books I've read recently is by David Woodhouse about the 153-54 tour of the West Indies.

And you think to yourself, is this going to be a bit dry? Well, not a bit of it. So you've got riots going on, you've got countries seeking independence, you've got the England team wandering around completely naively, having no idea really how to behave. You've got perceived insults left, right and centre, and at the midst of it all, you've got this gripping series, which finishes 2-2.

And so when you're reading it, it's like a multi-stranded, who-done it really, because I wasn't totally familiar with the 53, 54 tour. So it's like a gripping story that you don't really know the end. of and yet your transport is a bit like reading a bit of Agatha Christie, you know, you're sent right back in time to the 30s and 40s. With that in mind, what's the one that really gets you, what are the ones about older tours? Because that's a sort of category of book, isn't it? Well, as you know, Dan, we lived together in Australia for a little bit this winter, and I was certainly reading Richard Whitehead's 50, victory in Australia.

Victory Australia, yeah. The Typhoon Tyson and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, we, we, We needed a Typhoon Tyson in the most recent Ashes Tour. So, I mean, I thought that I actually messaged him, and it won a lot of awards this year and said, you know, this is such a fantastic document of that period. And I remember flying over Shark Island and looking down and thinking of a couple of passages from that book because he mentions, you know, that first test at the Gabba

and how febrile it is. And there's, or people sat on oil canisters and the heat and the scorched earth and the sky is bluer than he's ever seen before and stuff like that. So it's a, yeah, it's a really sort of those books that put you in that place, it's quite a hard thing to do. But David Woodhouse's book certainly does that too. And yeah, I think they're, because you can often look at the footage and think, oh, this is, you know, so gentlemanly and, you know, a bit sort of, a bit sort of passe or whatever. But those books really sort of have a visceral quality to them. Also, you know, cricket writing encourages books about amateurs.

You know, we're talking here about cricket and professional cricket. But some of the books that really took off were books like Rain Men, for example, and Penguin Stop Play, which sort of feel a little bit to be like almost like the fever pitch of cricket books. And what is it about that? I mean, why is everybody, and I love those books, but you get really into finding out about people that are not famous. You're never going to know. I suppose they resemble you a bit in their general incompetence of the way that they're obsessed with their own cricket and take it so seriously. But there's a sort of category of cricket book that's like that.

isn't there, Simon, which is always really kind of charming and lovely. I just think cricket's got, because of the tempo of the game, you know, a test match takes several days, a county match takes several days, okay, recreational cricket's an afternoon, but there is sort of space for normal life to intrude, and your character is expressed in the game. Perhaps again, football or rugby, it's so much more condensed and so much more action-packed in a way

that there isn't time for character to express itself. So I think that's why literature is so well. Cricket is so well suited to literature because of the tempo, I think, and the time for character to express itself. And that is the case in recreational cricket, village cricket, as much as it is in professional cricket. There's a lovely book called Not Out First Ball

by Roger Morgan Grenfell, which is about his team, The White Rhinos, I think they are. And the idea is they play games, and you can't be out first ball. You know, they're that bad. And his wicket-keeper is called the human sieve. And so he sort of becomes this wonderful character throughout the book, The Human Siv. Just go straight through him.

And you're just, you know, transported into teams that you have yourself been in. Yeah, there's Glory Gardens as well. Shout out to Glory Gardens, which I just remembered on the way up the stairs, which are sort of teenage fiction about a teenage cryptic. But I love those. I read those. I'm desperate for them to win. every time.

Exactly, yeah. But they're a sort of, remember the Renford Rejectors. They're sort of, they're not very good, and, you know, there's squabbles and there's, you know,

there's fights for jockeying for position and all that stuff. But as a sort of gateway fiction book into cricket, they're a really good series. I'm going to talk more about fiction shortly, but Daniel Goldberg's been in touch. He loves the greatest test of all

by Jack Fingleton, who was a superb writer and player, of course, for Australia before the Second World War. It's about the tied test at the Gabber during the 60-61 Australia tour. Beno versus Woy. all two captains

and incredible attitude towards cricket, legendary players from history, Gary Sober's, West Hall, Bobby Simpson, Neil Harvey and so forth. This series revived cricket,

which was dying a slow, painful death. And that's another theme that comes through in so many cricket books, isn't it? Is cricket's on the verge of death always and it needs to be revived somehow. I mean, it's been on the verge of death

since it started, from what I can gather. David Griffiths' favourite is Australian Summer, the test matches of 36, 37 by Neville Cardas, when Quisling traitor Gabby Allen went down to Australia, won the first two tests, but because the Australians were so upset at having lost in 32-3

through perfectly legitimate tactics from Surrey legend, Douglas Jardine and Harold Larwood from these parts, no one was allowed to bowl a bouncer for three months. And Australia came roaring back with a three-two win. Richard Morton has just read Ben Bloom's batting for time. There's a book that tackles the existential crisis in cricket. get quite a few of those. They're not really social histories like, say, Derek Burley's or Markerese, anyone for England.

But they're ones that are kind of trying to point out that we need to do something. We need to be vigilant. That's a kind of type of book that appears a fair bit. Yes, it does. Yeah, I've read that book. It's very interesting. Yeah, I mean, as you say, cricket's been in crisis since it started, really, isn't it? I mean, my thought about sort of the early days is that one of the, when we had professionals and amateurs,

playing the game. One of the ways that the amateurs could stay involved in the game was that they were allowed to write journalism about cricket. You could be paid for journalism without breaching the rules. For some arcane reason, that was okay. Just to be clear, to the listers, you couldn't, for example, you just couldn't be captain of England if you weren't an amateur.

So being an amateur, that status was very significant. Exactly. But journalism was allowed, so you had people like Pallin-Warner, C.B. Fry, these sort of people, my friend Gilbert. Hersy Fender, I guess. Hersy Fender. They were journalists and that helped them continue to play cricket.

So you had this sort of class of player who, the literature became a, it was a sort of an adjunct to the game really. You needed people writing about it to stay involved. So You've also got the fact that there's tours going on. Now, you know, if you're playing

a game of football, yes, I mean somebody can write about Manchester 90s or Liverpool season or whatever, but there's something exotic, isn't there, about the 1930s, Jim, players going on a steamship spending and you've written matter loads of course Simon

but spending ages on this boat together then arriving in a country with no aeroplanes it takes ages to get around it's hot it's dusty the conditions are dreadful they're all living with each other stuff's going to go wrong is that partly why cricket lends itself to this kind of writing

I think so yeah it is that it teaches you historical things but it also teaches you to go back to it teaches you about life and friendships and how to just get on and how those those books sort of tap into something that you perhaps might not even thought of. I remember before, it was my first tour of Australia and I hadn't thought of, you know, what it would be like to get a however long it took on a boat to go over there and they, you know, they entertain themselves

by playing deck coits and all this sort of stuff. It seems very, I mean, completely different to what it's like these days when you get on an airplane and, you know, you can be in that country the next day. So that was definitely part of it. It was part of the, it was part of the the touring side of it. They were away for an awful long time and they had to... Well, W.G. Grace was on, right? In those early days, he would...

almost make a profit out of the tours, but he'd be the only one that's making anybody out of those tours. Massive profits, yeah. Of course, the tour book has declined since TV coverage came in. In the old days, you needed the tour books written by either journalists or players to tell you what had actually happened in Australia

because you couldn't see it. But obviously now, since 1990, we've had ball by ball, live coverage on TV of... And the tour... The tour books are now... Well, there aren't any really, are there? Oh, really? And the tour's not as long.

No. And there's not as much variety. I mean, you know, the player stayed in the hotel for another week. I know they also went to Nusa, but, you know... That's a book in itself, though. Annie, when we talked earlier, you reminded me about fiction. Because not all cricket literature is about fact.

And you reminded me of Shahan Karuna Tilika's... brilliant book, Chinaman. I've forgotten how much I love that book until he reminded me. It's one that people really should read. What is it that grabbed you about that book? I think just, it's a bit of a mystery kind of book,

and it's just got extraordinary passages of writing in it. It's a wonderful, wonderful book. And also, fiction, even though it's a fiction book, it teaches you a lot about, you know, about cricket, Sri Lanka and so it's just a great book. There's there is a lot of interesting cricket fiction around.

I just think it's quite hard to find it. You were saying that you hadn't read a lot of cricket fiction. There's Joseph O'Neill's Neverland as well, isn't there? That was really, really popular. And that set in New York, and it's about a cricket league put together by the occasional shady character and the occasional obsessive. And it won loads of awards. It just is bizarrely, wonderful. It's so evocative of its time and its place and the characters are so magnificently drawn. That's Joseph O'Neill, isn't he?

The O'Neill book has a great bit. He describes fielding as pulmonary, the sort of movement of field is in and out, and I've definitely stolen that line, actually, from him. I've done that on commentary, because it talks about it like a lung taking in air and then coming back in again as the field has come in and go back out again. And I actually thought of that line.

It's funny how certain lines come to you. On day one, when I was walking around the car, concourses about how England looked pretty ragged and I was thinking maybe they've gone a bit sclerotic or whatever and there's people at the back of the concourses passed out in 36 degree heat it all felt quite a yeah there was an organ failing there but they've done well to get I suppose to cling on in this much

Joanna Biddington her favourite book is Penguin Stop Play by Harry Thompson we mentioned that she says hilarious book tells the story of one of those great idiotic enterprises only an Englishman could have dreamt up for 11 village cricketers to play cricket on all seven continents of the world including Antarctica, made all the more poignant. Because by the fact that Harry Thompson died shortly after publication,

Felix White wrote a lovely book. It's always summer somewhere. And, you know, that's a book where it is a bit like, Annie, your book, about how much cricket changes someone's life, how much it means to them. I mean, Felix's there dealing with his mother. His love of his mother, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a beautiful book, isn't it?

It is. It's a really, it's a really cheerful and positive book, but also a really deeply moving book as well. I remember having that sort of sensation of laughing and crying at the same time. So I think that's really good in a book. I've got another one here from Dave Trusler and Leighton Buzzard. He loves fatty batter by Michael Simkin's. It's ages since that came out, isn't it?

I mean, that's another one of those books, which is about hapless teams. But, you know, there's emotion in those as well, you know, because a lot of it, you know, It's about elderly try-hards like me, hoping for one last moment in the sun. And, you know, somebody gets a 50 in some game. And it means so much to them and it takes them away from all the torments of their daily lives. And, I mean, Simon, that's part of what cricket's about, is it, the escapism. It says. Well, I mean, there's a book out now, I think, by Olly Randall called Writers in Whites,

which is about literary figures who loved cricket. and so J.M. Barry, Arthur Kernan Doyle, these sort of people, even in War, I think. Alex War. Yes, exactly. So the cricket's got this reputation of being, having a fine literature, but it's also got some great literary figures who loved the game. Oh, Edmund Blunder and all that.

And that team kept going, didn't it? In various iterations, it sort of had the C. Albury Smith, I think, played for them. the time, the actor. But J.M. Barry was an obsessive cricket fan. But then you go later on, and you know, we've got first-class cricketer who's got a Nobel Prize. Samuel Beckett. Not many have got that.

Cricket's got a prime minister who's got first-class, played first-tileged games, Alex Douglas Hume. So there's a literary connection. I mean, cricket's got literary connections sort of everywhere you look, really. That audience's cricket team is still going, right? I mean, we've played for them a couple of times, and there's some very good writers who play that, Sebastian Fulks has played for them, and shout out to John Hotton, who is a writer of some fantastic cricket books.

And Simon Lister as well, yeah. Lots of really good cricketers play, yeah. Let's just briefly touch on Hottors, though, because John Hotton wrote, I think, one of the great cricket books, which didn't get as much publicity as I thought it might. But he did a sort of a damned united version of Geoffrey Boycott, didn't he? So you've got Geoffrey's actual diaries, which are very extensive. And then John Hotton inhabits the brain of Jeffrey Boycott and gives you a second view.

It's a second person and it really puts you in there so you think this and you did this and you hear it on the radio when you get selected for England and being Jeffrey boycott it's called and you really are put in put in his brain. And Jeffrey had kept these diaries of his playing time and John sort of took them in lockdown, I think it was and turned them into this with, you know, with Jeffrey, turn them into this fantastic sort of. it's a ghost written book but they sort of intertwine and it's a limit or space isn't it because half of it is actually written by Geoffrey because they are his diaries and then the other half is an interpretation

of Geoffrey which who knows how accurate it is but Geoffrey was happy with it and he wasn't he I mean he was happy to go out to absolutely some of it I think oh God really did Geoffrey was Geoffrey was Geoffrey was Geoffrey alright with that but apparently he was but I love the fact you say it's like Damn United

It's a really similar sort of style book And that was a fantastic book in itself It was super about Brian Clough If you're interested Football has its own literature as well The TMS podcast From BBC Radio 5 Live John Symington from North Yorkshire's got in touch

He says the first time I've got in touch I do enjoy the chatter you all have The book I was interested in was 500 to 1 About the famous Australia Tour of 81 It also had an interesting background about the state of the country at the time, that is a feature of a lot of cricket books that you don't just get an arid description.

Everything is done in context. And of course, 81, we have the context of, you know, poverty, deindustrialisation, Margaret Thatcher had just got it, Princess Diama. Innocity riots, I think. In a city riots, Brixton, Toxteth and the like. And so it's always placing these sporting events in their social context. Which is what the David Woodhouse book is very good at.

in the Caribbean, as you mentioned. Absolutely, in 53-4. And actually, Stephen Brinkley, his book in about the 1926 series, Annie, you'd have read that for judging a couple of years ago. Again, a really good book, yeah, yeah. There's so many like that. One really important book that's just been written recently is Wind Rush Cricket as well by Michael Collins.

Again, a really good social book. Yeah, I mean, the Brinkley book about 26, is actually as much a book about the general strike as it is about cricket. So if you're interested in history, I mean, I find out from cricket books so many things about the past that I didn't know. I mean, your book, Simon, chasing Jessup, was brilliant on the getting inside the press box, but also understanding speed and how it was coming in and how the telegraph was being used and how suddenly people could get scores updated in no time. And these are things you don't think about in the internet age and sit here.

I've done nothing about that really until I started researching the book and found out about the telegraph system and how newspapers were going through a revolution right around that period, really, and the new titles coming in, Daily Mail, Daily Express, etc. And things were really changing fast. And that story, which was obviously big news, the newspapers could adapt to and respond to that story quickly because of the telegraph system

that was evolving so fast at that point. So in a way, your book is as much about a fast changing world that Jessup scored his runs in as it is about that innings. Lorraine Hill is in Coventry. She says hi, for me, it has to be

first, menace by Dennis Lilly. He was the reason I became interested in cricket. A group of us in the early 80s doing our lunchtime would sneak into the TV room within the school library and put the ashes on. I felt hopelessly in love with this dark-haired bowler shirt open wide, medallion swinging, Dennis Lilly.

And another one, she mentions, is a heartbreaking book, of course, The Judge by Robin Smith. Oh, yeah. And that's sort of, that's in that realm, isn't it? Annie, the sort of the Marcus Dress Gothic type book. And increasingly people being able to talk about those sorts of things in their lives, which they wouldn't have been able to do even 10, 15, 15 years ago. Yeah, it's a bit like some of Foxy Fowler's books.

Paul Smith's wasted as well. It's all that same sort of thing of people talking about the bad things that happen as well, as well as just the good thing. Rob Smyth helped Robin Smith write that book and he really, those two worked together really closely

and I remember speaking to Rob about it and he was saying, you know, do you want to mention this? Do you want to go to these sort of places? You know, they're very dark places. He said, absolutely. You know, this is my story. It's all part of it.

And I thought that was an incredible. actually and and I really do like those sort of because you do get some autobiographies that's straight up and down you know the play a player finishes their career and it's kind of you know born here played here finished here did all that sort of so but those books that kind of take you to a different place or play with the format a little bit I think very interesting so a great book is Kim Hughes by Christian Ryan Golden Boy which is a sort of I don't think you know I don't think Christian even he just uses all the

all this sort of source material. He doesn't speak to Kim Hughes at all. But it's a remarkable sort of character study of him and his place in Australian cricket and how he didn't quite fit with the sort of macho figures at the time. And, you know, I read that recently and thought that was...

He also did a book about photography, didn't he? Yes. Yeah. One five thousandth of a second. That was it. That's right. Brilliant book. That was a very, yeah, exceptional book, I thought.

I mean, there are some brilliant Australian writers. Gideon Haig would go top of the tree. Jeff Lemmon's book, Steve Smith's Men on the sandpaper gate stuff. Some brilliant books come out of Australia. There's one that I'm just going to recommend to people because it was an absolute gem that went under the radar last year and it's called Father Marriott's Summer Holiday. Well, it wasn't that?

It's very simple. It's 150 pages long, but it's about a man who played one test match for England, took 11 wickets in that test match, never played again. He fought in the First World War. He was friends with Edmund Bloods. who we were talking about a moment ago, one of the members of the authors team. And he obviously had post-traumatic stress disorder, but it wasn't diagnosed in those days. And he went to teach at Dulwich College, and he would only play cricket in the summer holidays and the half term.

And he used to play with a man called Titch Freeman in Kent, who took over 3,000 wickets. And when he and Freeman got together, Kent would win all their games. They got very, very close to winning the title on a number of occasions. but Father Marriott, he was called Father Marriott. He wasn't, that was his nickname. He wasn't a man with a cloth. He was then abandoned, Kenner, to go back and teach cricket at Dulwich. I mean, such a bizarre time.

And that book is as much about, you know, the damage that the First World War did, but also the amateur professional distinction that you're making. And just a remarkable cricketer who averaged about 16 in first class cricket, but no one knows about him. And what's beautiful about it is when you get good writing, you kind of know, don't you? Like in about two pages, you feel, oh, I am safe with this person's style. And I gobbled that book up. I think it took me a long train ride, actually.

I mean, I would so recommend that. Guy Dorrell says, don't forget, oh, I like this one, yeah. Ballam to Bollywood by Chris England, a very funny book. That's an Indian tour by a village team. That's another absolutely classic of that particular genre. Don't people get to end up playing in... Playing a cricket match, yeah, which is LaGahn, isn't it? Yeah, if you haven't seen LaGahn, I mean, I know we're talking about books.

Oh, I love LeGhan. Read that book and watch LaGarn. It's a very long film. It's in two parts, and it's my favourite Bollywood movie. It's about a cricket match in about, what, 1910 or something, is it? What's your second favourite, Daniel? The second favourite Bollywood movie? Well, I can't pronounce it all really well.

Right, I've got some more suggestions here. Barbara Platt, according to my husband, one of the best books is First of the Summer Wine by Harry Pearson. He also says the book does not only bring to life the three great Yorkshire players, George Hurst, Schofield, Hague and Wilfred Rhodes, but also describes how the County Cricket Championship was the original and most important competition

in the English summers up to the First World War, eclipsing any test match cricket played during that period. He said that's another thing. that you sort of only find out from these. I used to read all the test match that scores and assume that that was what it was all about like it is today. But in those days actually, counties didn't want

to give their players away, didn't they? No, and I'm still a member of some WhatsApp groups where they still don't, you know, where they say, you know, such and such has been picked for England and, you know, we've got a big game next week, and I know you probably feel that from a story, all your players basically get a... Oh, I hate it.

I hate it when they get. They won't thank me for it, but I hate it when sorry players get selected for England. Unlike, if you don't mind I was saying so, Annie, Somerset fans who are desperate for their players to play for England, and I just say, be careful what you hope for. I don't feel that myself, I have to say. That's the right, that is the spirit, Annie.

Annie is a Somerset fan, and people didn't realize, they've been in the cupboard for 10 years. I've got another one here that I remembered, which I love this, because Johnny Barclay is such a fun writer. He says, Roger Miles in Angmering in West Sussex, says, can I suggest John Barclay's life beyond the airing covered. I mean, that's a title

of a book's going to get you going to go for a start. A book which highlights that our county and national team players are simply regular human beings when all is said and done. The PR brigade love to promote the celebrity element, but nothing puts bottoms on seats like the whack of willow on leather, a stinging catch, the red

grenade heading for the car park, all at the best of a bunch of chaps of exactly the foibles of their audience. And, you know, that's something that you've I've read that book. It's very good. I mean, you mentioned earlier, Simon Hughes's a lot of hard jacket, which I thought was terrific, really. It sort of really opened up the life of the county pro.

You know, Simon didn't play for England, but he was a very good county player, but he hung around with, as he says in the book, I hung around with a lot of superstars like Both and Richards, etc. So he, I thought that shed a really interesting light on the game. He was very 80th cricket, though, wasn't that? is cricket, yes. I mean, a lot of...

Let's hope they don't behave like the... Yeah, like they did then, but I fear they might do some of them. But, yeah. I think standards have improved a bit, actually, since the 80s. Of the Lord, both of them would have thought. So, right, I'm afraid this chat, which I could keep doing for yonks,

has to come to an end, because the players are coming out. So I'm going to do that invidious thing. It's cruel. I'm going to put you on the spot. You're on the desert island? Maybe you're on a desert island. You've got one book. I'm not allowing you to have wisdom, like what's his name had in the prison of war camp, you know, E.W. Swanton.

The works of the copy of wisdom. You've got one book. I'll start with you, Jim. Yep. Oh, good. Well, yeah, I'm going to go for John Houghton. He's been a great mentor of mine over the years, and I think he's an amazingly empathetic writer, and he's so crystal clean with his prose.

And the meaning of cricket is, I think, a really good book to dip in and out of, and you can keep going to it. So yeah, if I was on a desert island, it would be one where you can dip in and out of and commune with a lovely, lovely writer. The meaning of cricket, John Harton. Simon? Oh, this is impossible.

It is. It's ridiculous. You can choose one of your own if you want. It was a book, okay, I mean, this is just random, but there was a book called The Golden Age of Cricket by Patrick Mora, which is a great account of the Golden Age era in 1890 through 1914, and it tells all the great stories of that period. And I remember reading that when I was young,

and it sort of captivated that period for me. I subsequently wrote books about Rangy and Jessop, so I guess that sort of got me going on that period. Annie, you know what's coming? I've got to be brief because the players are out. What's your favourite book? Very, very quickly, then if I had to be Summers Crown by Stephen Short because then I'd have pictures of all the county grounds as well.

That's brilliant. Do you know what? I think mine would be also by Stephen Chalk. It's a no coward soul, the biography of Bob Applegiard. You've got a favourite cricket book, Andy? I mean, that's a crazy question in a way, because you might have many favourites, but they'll throw in a few.

Well, I mean, the classic Beyond a Boundary by CLRJ, that's one of my favourites. I have a soft spot for John Arlott's book about the 1950-45 Ashes, which I think was the only time he went to Australia. Ah, the tour book. One of the first books.

Bricket books I read. Do you have a favourite? Michael? I've got a couple. I must admit, I don't. I did enjoy Steve Waugh's Bible. His autobiography. It's very thick.

Yes. Did enjoy that. Toughest Tales. Toughest Tales, yeah? Yeah, toughest. He's a terrific. He's written so many. Well, I think he's on to his 13th.

Yeah? Book. Yeah? Simon Hughes's book. Lola Hard Yacker? Yes. That's a great fun book, isn't it? Do enjoy that one.

My favorite book of a while is the book that Duncan Hamilton wrote about Harold Larlwood. That was a terrific book. All the body line stuff and the atmosphere of Adelaide. I had your diary of a county season. Oh. Was that about 87? Eight days a week? Oh, shit.

I thought you were going to say Adrian Moll then. 1988, that was. Did you used to do a diary? Did you have a really... Well, no. Simon Hughes wrote one. A lot of hard yak-o, or something that was that. About the same time.

And they hadn't really been done before. I think a footballer had done one. who's name I can't remember Is it Eamondonfey? It was. It was. Absolutely. Good, nothing.

That's very good. So suddenly there was this thought, what a great idea. And so Simon and I wrote our books at about the same time. And it was interesting because the players in our team really had no idea,

certainly in Leicestershire, had no idea really that I was doing it. Oh, so it was a secret? Well, it was sort of. It had to go back every night and wrote it. But you couldn't just go and say, got up at 7.30. you know, had a shower

and he had to get some humour into it and create characters. And I did have characters, I mean, Les Taylor was just such a character, who's my roommate, so I wrote about him a lot, Peter Willie, but I'm not sure how much,

when it came out, not sure how much they enjoyed it really, because it's, you know, so was it released? You got to take the Mickey a bit. At the end of every summer? No, he was only once. Okay.

It was one year, 1988, I think it was. So, Simon wrote his... It would have been competing with Adrian Moeller around that time. Would have been. I interviewed Sue Town, They're not as much special, actually. She's a Lester woman.

It was quite brave to do it because you couldn't just write it totally straight. But I was jealous of Simon because he had Botham. So if you're writing about playing with Botham, you're away, aren't you? You really are. And as long as you sustain possibly a bit of punishment afterwards from a disgruntled Ian, then it was okay. Jeremy Coney is alongside him. What cricket book stand out for you, Jeremy?

Did you write a book? Yes, I did. which I wrote myself. It was called? It was called the playing mantis. Oh, very good. Yes, oh yes. To explain that you were known as the praying mantis.

Yes. Was that your bowling particularly? What was it? Where did the praying mantis bit come from? Usually from running and fielding. Just the awkward gate. Sort of crept in quite stealthily when you bowled, didn't you? Well, if you weren't watching, it wasn't that long run-up, was it really?

No. De Selencore, I think. I remember reading, I think it was called The Cricket Match and the build-up of two very small local areas playing each other.

Wonderful. There's so many. You know, yes. Wonderful books, isn't they? Neville Cardus was always someone who interested me, Gideon Hay. John Napa has emailed as the daughter of a massive cricket fan.

I have no choice but to become a fan myself. And at the age of 16, I read The Art of Captancy by Mike Braley, fascinating stuff for my first ever leadership book. I now read leadership books as part of my job. So cricket, as you all know, is relevant to all aspects of life. It's a book I take with me every tour I go. Yeah? Absolutely.

It's in my bag at the moment. It is a fascinating book, isn't it? Good book. Yeah, it is. I think when you read a cricket book, you don't want anything bland, but you want insight. Because cricket takes so much time, I mean, there is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes.

People want an insight into that, don't they really? But also, I think they want a tactical insight as well. What's it like to be out there? What are you thinking at the time? Because we can look and try to surmise what's going on because you've been in that position as New Zealand captain. You knew what was going on out there in the middle. So you can tell us that if you choose to do so.

If you choose to reveal all the details, Stephen Estim says, please save a mention for Miles Jupp's book, Fibber in the Heat, a romantic, truthful account of blagging of the highest order, not for profit, but for love, the love of the game of cricket, worth any number of minutes to dive in, enjoy the fun. Miles is a brilliant comedy writer, perform a classic cricket book.

Well, I was kind of part of that, because Miles was on that tour, and he turned up at Mumbai Airport, and he said, well, he said, well, I'm part of your team. I said, Miles, are you? I didn't know, I didn't really know him then at all. I'd know him very well now, but he said, I'm working for BBC Scotland and for newspaper in South Wales. I think it was like, okay, BBC Scotland, that's interesting, the tour of India.

Basically, Miles, is at the Oval Test of 2005, and he thought, he looked up with the press box and thought, I'd like to be in there. So he got himself on, he got himself accredited. He knew a couple of people that, BBC Scotland won in the paper in South Wales. He got himself accredited. And I think what happened with it, I think... So where did his reports go? Well, this is a very good...

I mean, read the book, everyone. It's a great book. And obviously he's a great storyteller as well. I think the first day we were there, he was doing some reports. He'd managed to get some commissions from a newspaper in South Wales. But the first day we were there,

I think we got news on our WhatsApp or text. Simon Jones is out of the tour. So the one player he could write about, you know, with a Welsh angle, that was it straight away right at the tour. So I think he's, you know, sort of a sinking feeling. But also one of my first memories of Miles

is we were, a flight up to, I think it was Rajkot possibly for the first test match. And we had quite a long time to wait. There's a few of us. We hired a hotel room because we had a long flight. We just did a hotel room kind of for the afternoon, into the evening before our flight because we had nowhere to go. And Miles took a shower.

But in the Indian hotel that we were in, I think he'd failed to realize that you had to sort of pull this curtain down. So my first memory of Miles was basically seeing his bare backside in the... having a shower. I didn't realize that you needed to pull this curtain thing down. You probably stayed in hotel rooms like that. Yes, I have. So, you know, an unforgettable start.

We became friends on that trip. On that basis. Yeah, well... You know, you do get close to people, don't you? I'm on the tour. But he didn't make any money out of working for BBC Scotland or the newspaper. So he didn't make any money out, but he did eventually because he turned it into a book and then a stage show. show because he's a great performer so he performed a state you know toured it around talk about

his experience called fibber in the heat and then he wrote the book of it as well so i think ultimately came out of it pretty well the tms podcast on bbcc sounds five light sports so here's the first ball of this series all the cricket you laugh lives on bbcccatss smash straight back down the ground this girl hear ball by ball coverage of the biggest competitions on the domestic and and international circuits. It's a fourth weekend, and it's the huge one. Cheese, horse. Settle down for so many.

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