**WINNER OF THE MCC / CRICKET SOCIETY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD'The definitive telling of the life of a West Indian hero'Sir Clive Lloyd**The brilliant all-rounder Frank Worrell had to wait until 1960 to become the first permanent Black captain of the West Indies cricket team, denied for a decade by the elitism, insularity and racism of Caribbean cricket’s rulers. When his chance finally came, Worrell transformed a talented but unfocuse...

'The definitive telling of the life of a West Indian hero'Sir Clive LloydThe brilliant all-rounder Frank Worrell had to wait until 1960 to become the first permanent Black captain of the West Indies cricket team, denied for a decade by the elitism, insularity and racism of Caribbean cricket’s rulers. When his chance finally came, Worrell transformed a talented but unfocused team into the most exciting side in the wor...

Spiced with humour, the tales of epic encounters at Clifton Hampden are told alongside more modest affairs at Lords, Headingley and OldTrafford.

Using contemporary accounts of W.G.'s greatest innings, many for the first time, Robert Low presents a radically new image of the sportsman who was recognised as the pre-eminent athlete of his day.From his emergence as a teenage prodigy to well past his fiftieth year W.G. dominated the game of cricket, taking 2,876 wickets and scoring 54,896 first-class runs in a career lasting an incredible 43 years, from 1865 to 1908. His beard and massive frame made him instantly recognisable wherever h...

Jonathan “Aggers” Agnew, England’s voice of cricket, showcases some of the very best writings on the noble game, from the 1930s to the present day.In this wide-ranging and beautifully-produced anthology, Test Match Special’s Jonathan ‘Aggers’ Agnew, chooses a wide variety of writings on the sport that has consumed his life, from the 1932/33 Ashes (Bodyline) series right up to the present day. In a series of carefully considered, thematically organised reflections, he examines the i...

Cricket has an alarming suicide rate.Among international players for England and several other countries it is far above the national average for all sports: and there have been numerous instances at other levels of the game.For thirty years, celebrated cricket author David Frith has collected data on this sad subject. Silence of the Heart is his compelling account of over a hundred cricketers - involving top names from the past hundred years - who have taken their...

The former Prime Minister examines the early history of one of the great loves of his life in a book that sheds new light on the summer game’s social origins.All his life John Major has loved cricket. In ‘More Than a Game’ he examines it from its origins up to the coming of the First World War. Along the way he considers the crucial role of the wealthy patrons who gambled huge sums on early matches; the truth behind the legends that have grown up around the famous Hambledon Club; c...

Once the preserve of the English, now, for nations the world over, summertime means cricket bats to be oiled, rain forecasts analysed and tea in the pavilion.Cricket has enthralled us since the seventeenth century. But what is it about the game that provokes such fervour?Award-winning sports author Gavin Mortimer calls together a cast of salt-of-the-earth Yorkshiremen, American billionaires and dashing Indian princes to tell the strange and remarkable tale of cricket's jour...

**WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH CRICKET BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019'Beautifully written, meticulously researched and stuffed with rich sporting and social history ... Unputdownable'** Mail on SundayAfter the Second World War, as the BBC tightened its grip on the national consciousness, two of the most famous English voices were commentators on games of cricket. John Arlott and E.W. ('Jim') Swanton transformed the broadcasting of the nation's summer game into a national i...

The acclaimed Sunday Times Sports Book of the YearAmericans may like to think they invented baseball (even if Jane Austen wrote about it decades earlier). And the French might be proud of founding the modern Olympics (when, in fact, a Shropshire doctor beat them to it by forty years).But it was the British that gave sport to the world.From the beginnings of 'the beautiful game' - raucous matches of folk football with hundre...

England v Scotland is the world football's oldest rivalry, and this fascinating book tells the story of how it all began.Sports historian Andy Mitchell, former head of communications at the Scottish FA, has researched the events that led to the creation of a global phenomenon.He brings to life the players who set the ball rolling in first international in Glasgow on 30 November 1872 and describes how this game was not just a beginning but also marked the end of two years of...

Why did killing a fox mean liberty? What did parish revels have to do with the Peterloo Massacre? What did animal cruelty have to do with the English constitution? What did the Factory Acts mean for modern football? In This Sporting Life, Robert Colls explains sport as one of England's great civil cultures. The lived experiences of people from all walks of life are reclaimed to tell England's history through its great sporting cultures, from the horseback pursuits of the wealthy a...