Cricket Sport

Following Neville Cardus's assertion that 'there can be no summer in this land without cricket', Hamilton plotted the games he would see in 2019 and wrote down reflectively on some of the cricket that blessed his own sight. It would be captured in the context of the coming season in case subsequent summers and the imminent arrival of the Hundred made that impossible. He would write in the belief that after this season the game might never be quite the same again.

Hallo—I'm Mark Wood. As an England and Durham cricketer who was born, raised and refined in Ashington, Northumberland, my life has been quite unique. Over the course of my career so far, I've won an Ashes and a World Cup in an international career that at the time of writing is going on seven years and counting. Being a fast bowler like myself is up there with the toughest of all sporting pursuits, like being Tyson Fury's punchbag or working behind the bar during the darts at Ally Pally. Being a cricketer? There's nothing like it.

The year 1971 was the one that changed Indian cricket forever. Accustomed to seeing a talented but erratic Indian team go from one defeat to another, a stunned cricketing world watched in astonishment as India first beat the West Indies in a Test series on their home turf and then emerged victorious over England - in England. Suddenly, the Indian team had become a force to reckon with. Boria Majumdar and Gautam Bhattacharya's book is a thrilling account of the 1971 twin tours that brings to life the on-field excitement and the backroom drama.

For all the significant moments in Adam's life, cricket was in the background - or foreground. And you don't need to be a fan of cricket to be able to relate, because we all remember where we were when something important happened, whether that's a cricket test, an album release or a TV show ending. Twelve Summers is hilarious, moving and thought-provoking. Even if you aren't a fan of cricket, you'll find a lot to love listening to this audiobook.

Michael Simkins is the ultimate Sunday cricketer - passionate, obsessive, technically inept and hopelessly deluded. When an injury rules him out, he decides to set off on an odyssey across the counties of England. It's a journey that begins at the birthplace of cricket, takes in the burial site of his favourite ground and even stops along the way to flirt with the love child of WG Grace and Kerry Katona that is Twenty20. It ends with the ultimate cricketing zenith - returning to the field of play to bowl an over to Freddie Flintoff in fading light in front of a capacity crowd.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Six Machine by Chris Gayle, read by Leroy Osei-Bonsu. 'If the ball's there, hit it. Don't worry about what might happen. Play for the glory. Play for the six.' Chris Gayle is the only man to have ever hit a six off the first ball of a test match.

Green grass, blue skies, white flannels and the gentle thwack of leather on willow: the quintessential image of Englishness that heralds the start of the cricket season. A so-called gentleman's game developed with the principle of fair play at its hearts. All well and true - unless you're a person of colour living in Britain today. Azeem Rafiq, the former Yorkshire cricketer and England youth captain, learnt this the hard way.

An entertaining look at one of sport's greatest rivalries - the Ashes - by former England spin bowler Graeme Swann. Graeme Swann leads us on a compelling adventure through one of world sport's most engrossing rivalries. He knows as much as anybody about the heat of England vs. Australia battles, having played in three series wins and also the whitewash defeat of 2013-14 when its intensity ended his international career.

In this book, Suresh Raina takes us through the challenges he faced as a young cricketer. He was bullied in school and at cricket camps, but he always punched above his weight, overcoming every adversity life threw at him and never giving up. This is the story of the lessons he learnt and the friendships he built.

Suresh Menon, easily one of India's best cricketwriters, relives the roller-coaster that was the 2011 World Cup, taking us through the highlights, the disappointments and doubts as well as the triumphs. From Virender Sehwag's boundary off the first ball of the World Cup to Dhoni's final six to the transformation of Yuvraj Singh, it's all here. A running commentary as well as a historical document of one of India's sporting epics.

Mike Brearley is one of the most successful cricket captains of all time, and in 1981 he captained the England team to the momentous Ashes series victory against Australia. In The Art of Captaincy, his treatise on leadership and motivation, he draws directly on his experience of man-managing a team, which included a pugnacious Ian Botham and Geoffrey Boycott, to explain what it takes to be a leader on and off the field.

The '80s was a colourful period in English cricket. As a member of the most successful team in Essex's history and an England side capable of extraordinary highs and lows, Derek Pringle was lucky enough to be in the thick of it. Now, with the perspective of more than 20 years as a journalist, he lays bare the realities of life as a professional cricketer in a decade when the game was dominated by a cast of unforgettable characters whose exploits became front-page news.

Cricket and baseball share a parallel and occasionally intertwined history (the first international cricket match was played in the United States). Indeed, they have mirrored their countries' struggles with identity and race, and have expanded beyond the shores of their founding countries to become multinational sports commanding global followings that are, even now, challenging the future of both sports. Right off the Bat is the perfect present for fans of either sport, as well as a handy introduction to those who want to divine the deeper rhythms of play.

Every captain would love Brearley's degree in people, as well as a hardhitting all-rounder like Botham. But theirs was a barely recognisable game from the one we play on often dishevelled grounds up and down the country with ragtag teams of ageing, deluded or hungover friends and acquaintances. Now, Charlie Campbell offers us a New Testament to Brearley’s Old Testament, as he guides us through the realities of captaining an amateur team.

"சச்சின் டெண்டுல்கர்" இவரின் வாழ்க்கையில் நடந்த திருப்புமுனையைப் பற்றி விறுவிறுப்பாக விவரிக்கும் ஒலிநூல் இது. திரைப்படங்களில் மட்டும் அல்ல நிஜ வாழ்க்கையிலும் எதிர்பாராத "டர்னிங் பாயிண்ட்" களால் தான் சுவாரசியம் சேர்கிறது.

Old friends and Test Match Special colleagues, Henry Blofeld and Peter Baxter had many outrageous tales of life in and around the radio cricket commentary boxes of the world. So in 2012, the two embarked on a tour that saw them take their hilarious stories onto the stage in a two-man show. They soon found themselves treading the boards in the West End, at the Edinburgh Fringe, and travelling as far afield as Australia.

Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff is one of the most exciting cricketers in the world and has improved out of all recognition during the last two years. In 2003, he was England's best player at the World Cup. Then, explosively, he lit up the second half of the summer in 2004, lifting spirits at Lord's with a bat-smashing 142. He walked off with the England man of the series award and averages to flaunt. This audiobook marks his story so far in his own words, taking us up to and including the summer of 2005.

It seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of 11 men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe - except that's not a simple idea at all. And when you throw in incompetent airline officials, cunning Bajan drug dealers, overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiotic Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus, and whole armies of pitch-invading penguins, you quickly arrive at a lot more than you bargained for.

On the 9th August 2013 the Australian cricket team will step onto the Emirates Durham International Cricket Ground for a history making Ashes Test - the first ever on Durham soil. However there is a already a solid historical link between Australia and the county and nowhere is this more obvious than in ten matches arranged between Australia and a variety of sides in Sunderland between 1878 and 1977.

That William Brockwell, who had touched the upper reaches of cricketing greatness and was talented in other ways, slipped badly is, alas, a tragic fact of history; and cruelly illustrative of the knife edge upon which professional cricketers of the "gold age" of English cricket lived.