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.
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 of the last 12 months.
This review from Charles Barr in the Association of Cricket Historians quarterly journal, soon to be released:
It was the summer of speed which smashed cricket’s modus operandi forever. So relentless were the volleys of ‘throat’ balls from Jeff Thomson and Dennis Lillee in 1974-75, that the departing English blessed themselves that no one had been killed. ‘One tour too many,’ 35-year-old Brian Luckhurst told a teammate.
