Cricket Books

[fredfertang]

There's a piece written by him in the Cricketer in 1966 - would you like me to email you a copy?

 

[neville cardus]

No need. I have the full run for that year. :-)

Which issue?

Thanks, Martin.

UPDATE: Found it!

 

[fredfertang]

Do you have an index to the Cricketer?

 

[neville cardus]

I don't, I'm afraid. Didn't know that such a thing existed! I was planning to digitise my copies to make them word-searchable. Where is one available?

 

[fredfertang]

Neither do I

 

[neville cardus]

I think we can safely conclude that Tayfield was no writer. But he does make me laugh out loud (and then feel very guilty for having done so) at this passage:

"Last man in was Blair, the New Zealand opening bowler. Earlier in the day, he had received the very sad news that his fiancée had been killed in a New Zealand train disaster. The crowd stood for him and Roy McLean, fielding at square leg, told me that Blair had tears in his eyes when he passed him on the way to the wicket. I felt the sadness of the moment as well, but was even sadder when off the first ball he received from me Blair hit a tremendous six far over the boundary rails."

The deadpan is just priceless.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

The oldest cricket book I have is the 1953 Playfair Cricket Annual which I inherited from my cousin. These books are usually full of interesting articles, especially those that try to guess what the future hold. There's a few copies on eBay at reasonable prices and I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in cricket history.

 

[neville cardus]

The Cricketer's "Bowler's Lot" series, to which Tayfield was contributing, turns out to be one of the most diverting that magazine has ever published. Sonny Ramadhin, for example, bars no holds. Hear him:

I choose Lord’s as my best performance because what happened in the second innings at Edgbaston made me so disgusted that I refused the chance to tour England with the West Indies in 1963. At Edgbaston, Peter May and Colin Cowdrey discovered that, if they could not play me with their bats, they could at least kick my bowling out of their wickets, or at any rate, that the umpires would let them.

One of England’s spin bowlers in that match reckons that I had Colin Cowdrey l.b.w. about 50 times in the partnership which saved the game for England, but, of course, I was hitting him on the front leg all the time, and so I never got a decision.

From then on, everyone started to kick my bowling out of their wickets, even nine, ten, jack. I remember Wilf Wooller coming into our dressing-room and saying: ‘There! Look what you’ve done to me!” and showing me the bruises on the back of his front leg. He had just thrown the leg and when the ball turned it hit the back of his leg. What a way to play!

I knew that this would happen again in 1963. That was why I refused the tour. It is small consolation to me that half the troubles with English cricket today started in England’s second innings at Edgbaston in 1957.

Who can bowl spin when pad play has become such a business, with batsmen like Colin Cowdrey and Mike Smith so good at it that people talk about “masters of pad play”? What an art to master! So England have no top-class spin bowlers.

And what is the point of learning to bat against spin if you are allowed to go out and kick it? They might just as well give them three pads instead of two pads and a bat. They are even making pads wider and thicker now so that the batsmen can kick the ball better! I see Lance Gibbs was having exactly the same trouble by the end of this year’s series. England were out there kicking at the Oval as well as ever. No wonder they won the World Cup.

Still, you get what you deserve. To me, pad play isn’t cricket, and England are now pretty nearly bottom of the league. They have got no top-class spinners and nobody much who can play top-class spin. It serves them right.​

I love every word of that.

 

[cnerd123]

I have just received a massive shipment of books (by that I mean 7 books I bought off Amazon and had my family bring in from India):

Beyond a Boundary by CLR James (already read it but wanted to own a copy and it was cheap. Great book)
Sphere of Influence by Gideon Haigh (good read, about halfway through. Quite informative with regards to the whole BCCI rising to power and IPL sagas)
Criconomics - Everything you wanted to know about ODI cricket and more by Surjit S Bhalla and Ankur Choudhary (unread - quite excited about this myself tbh. Also the most recently published book out of my set)
Twirlymen - the unlikely history of cricket's greatest Spin Bowlers by Amol Rajan (unread - screw what I said above, THIS is what I really wanna get my teeth into)
The Business of Cricket - The story of Sports Marketing in India by Shyam Balasubramanian and Vijay Santhanam (unread, quite a niche topic but I'm curious and it was cheap)
The Great Tamasha - Cricket, Corruption and the Turbulent Rise of Modern India by James Astill (unread - slightly out of date, but has huge reviews)
Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy - A journey to the heart of cricket's underworld by Ed Hawkins (unread, doubt there is much in this that I don't already know, but fingers crossed)

Tried to get my hand on a used copy of The Bowler's Art by Brian Wilkins, but after placing an order and waiting a month my copy got lost in the mail Got a refund, gotta place another order soon.

Will review the books quickly when I'm done with them. If anyone want's any pics or scans of any pages just lemme know and I'll see what I can do.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Read the last one by Hawkins; definitely changed a lot of the preconceived ideas that people get about match fixing.

Recently read Whitewash to Whitewash, not sure what to make of it. An interesting insight into the period, but not sure if I really learnt anything new, probably just confirmed whispers.

 

[Isura]

Can anyone a cricket bookstore in the London area?

 

[fredfertang]

J W McKenzie Cricket Books

 

[Isura]

Are there general book stores that have a good selection of cricket books? Especially older books.

 

[Days of Grace]

Yeah I saw his website. Wow.

I really want to browse some cricket books this trip. Besides Mckenzie's shop, which stores in London have really good selections, either new or second-hand?

 

[bagapath]

Will be in London from 30th to 5th. Is there any book store from where I can pick up "10 for 66 and all that"?

Also, what are the happening pubs for a cold one after work?

 

[bagapath]

J W McKenzie Cricket Books

Look very good. Will definitely check it out.

 

[neville cardus]

Gawd, I miss London bookstores. Go wild.

 

[chasingthedon]

Latest review:-

Greater than Bradman: Celebrating Sachin ? the Greatest Batsman in Cricket History | Cricket Web

Includes a response from the author, RL Fernandez.

 

[neville cardus]

There's no arguing with a True Believer, but Mr Fernandez's argument is easy to refute: If Bradman is less great than Tendulkar by mere virtue of the epoch in which he plied his trade -- i.e. through no fault or foible of his own -- then it stands to reason that Tendulkar would be less great than Bradman if their natal days were switched. I don't you about you, but I find that greatness loses much of its lustre if it's reduced to an accident of birth.

 

[chasingthedon]

There's no arguing with a True Believer, but Mr Fernandez's argument is easy to refute: If Bradman is less great than Tendulkar by mere virtue of the epoch in which he plied his trade -- i.e. through no fault or foible of his own -- then it stands to reason that Tendulkar would be less great than Bradman if their natal days were switched. I don't you about you, but I find that greatness loses some of its lustre if it's reduced to an accident of birth.

Yes - I gave him the opportunity but he didn't address any of the points I made unfortunately.