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Cricketing Lives: A Characterful History from Pitch to Page
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.
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Cricketing Lives: A Characterful History from Pitch to Page
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.
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Cricketing Lives: A Characterful History from Pitch to Page

Cricketing Lives: A Characterful History from Pitch to Page

Cricketing Lives: A Characterful History from Pitch to Page

Cricketing Lives: A Characterful History from Pitch to Page

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781789146479
Publisher: Reaktion Books, Limited
Publication date: 09/19/2022
Pages: 440
Product dimensions: 5.00(w) x 7.75(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Richard Thomas is associate professor in journalism at Swansea University. He has written about cricket for All Out Cricket, Wisden Cricket Monthly, Conversation, and Nightwatchman.

Table of Contents

Glossary 9

Foreword 17

Introduction 19

1 Lumpy, Mynn and Silver Billy

Until the Mid-nineteenth Century 22

2 The 'Golden Age', Grace and Trumper

The Turn of the Twentieth Century 33

3 More Golden Age Champions

Victorians and Edwardians 43

4 Gentlemen, Players, Varsity and Roses

Background Developments 57

5 The Greatest Rivalry

Even Bigger Background Developments 65

6 Good for Nothing and Nobody

The First World War 80

7 Governance, Grounds, Grandees, Books and Benefactors

Three Hundred Years of Organization and Altruism 92

8 Boxing, Sound Thrashings and the Big Ship

The 1920s 111

9 Touring, Tennyson and Rollo

Still Mainly in the 1920s 121

10 Root, Tich, Learie and Sandham

The 1920s Become the 1930s 131

11 Bradman and Hammond

The Greatest, but for One Man 142

12 Old Friends Fall Out

The 1930s 152

13 Nayudu, Vizzy, Verity, Grimmett, Gimblett and Smith

More from the 1930s 171

14 Cricket on the Cusp of War

Even More from the 1930s 182

15 Victims, Survivors and Invincibles

The 1940s 193

16 New Starts, New Stars and Caribbean Skies

The 1940s and 1950s 208

17 Brylcreem Boys

More from the 1940s and 1950s 220

18 Sensitive Spinners

The Mid-1950s 230

19 Tied Test and Tumult

The 1960s 239

20 Small Changes, Big Characters

More from the 1960s 252

21 Shorter Formats, New Stars

The 1960s and 1970s 262

22 Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained

From the 1960s to the 1990s 272

23 The Holy Trinity

Nine Decades of Writers and Talkers 285

24 World Cups and World Beaters

From the 1970s to the 1990s 295

25 Revolutions and Rebels

The 1970s to the New Millennium 311

26 One Man's Salvation

1981 324

27 Women's Cricket

A Century of Inequality 332

28 Cricket Will Never Die

A New Millennium 345

Appendix: The Laws of Cricket at a Glance 357

References 365

Select Bibliography 423

Acknowledgements 427

Photo Acknowledgements 429

Index 431

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