Author(s): Harry Ricketts

NZ Non Fiction

Rudyard Kipling called cricketers 'flannelled fools'. Groucho Marx asked halfway through a cricket match when it would begin. Alfred Hitchcock put two cricket fans in a thriller as comic relief. Yet despite its famously odd practices, slow pace, strange language, eccentric umpires and frequent scandals - or perhaps because of them - cricket is today one of the world's most passionately followed and played sports. In New Zealand, watching a cricket match is the quintessence of summer. So when cricket-obsessed writer Harry Ricketts and his Australian friend Tony take themselves to the second day of a test against the West Indies, things are bound to start happening... 'As elegant and economical as a Martin Crowe straight drive, this slim volume contains an admirably clear and concise introduction to cricket, a potted history of the game, a guide to the many and varied pleasures available to the serious cricket follower, and some beguiling fragments of autobiography. Well played, Mr Ricketts.' PAUL THOMAS 'A beautifully crafted innings of a book ? stylish, perceptive, superbly focused and vastly entertaining' KEVIN IRELAND Published November 2006.