Cricket Books

KEN PIESSE, author of more than 60 books on cricket, pays tribute to one of his heroes Bob Cowper who died this week, aged 84. So effortlessly sublime and exquisite was the quality of Bob Cowper’s silky stroke-play, that Australia’s Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies would have his chauffeur take...

Don’t you love a book so entrancing and evocative you simply can’t put it down? Barry Nicholls’ masterly memoir of Australia’s coming-of-age Ashes tour in 1972 is immersive and sparkles from page 1 when Ian Chappell fielded a phone in a Hindley Street hotel one lunchtime.

Mark Browning reviews The first ball after Lunch, John Benaud’s nostalgic trip back to 1973… Beautifully produced in an admittedly expensive limited edition, John Benaud’s ‘The First Ball After Lunch’ is a cricket connoisseur’s delight.

One Hell of a Life: Brian Close – Daring, Defiant and Daft has been named Wisden’s Book of the Year for 2024. Stephen Chalke’s biography of the former England, Yorkshire and Somerset captain has been selected by this year’s Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack reviewer David Woodhouse as the outstanding cricket book...

This review from Charles Barr in the Association of Cricket Historians quarterly journal, soon to be released:

Teenage prodigy Karl Schneider was destined for stardom when selected ahead of a young Don Bradman for Australia’s 1928 tour of New Zealand.