Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #331858 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Rory MacLean, The Guardian
"A hilarious, easy read, bursting with manic energy and youthful
exuberance"

Hugo Rifkind - The Times
"Very funny. Dave Gorman meets Andrew Flintoff in clothes borrowed
from Billy Connolly."

The Sunday Herald
"The definitive book about cricket in unlikely parts of the
world."

Customer Reviews

Howzat!
One doesn't expect to laugh out loud or to have to visit the bathroom while reading a book, but this happened to me FOR REAL when reading Angus Bell's work of genius.

Buy this book now! You will laugh so much...honestly!

Cricket in Borat's Village
Good bladder control is needed at certain parts of this excellent book by young Scottish writer Angus Bell. He got into his baterred Skoda and went off to find strange characters who play cricket in places like Belarus and Slovenia - many parts could be mistaken for Borat's village. Bell photographs a bus painted (mysteriously in English) with the slogan "Ministry for Emergency Situations for Strong and Prosperous Belarus!" He has great difficulty escaping this God-awful country for lack of seventy cents. I laughed so hard I nearly suffered side strain.

His adventures are so varied, from being bullied by bombastic city types when about to play on ice in Estonia, to watching gypsies being arrested for drug smuggling on the midnight express to Istanbul. (Shades of John Hurt being violated by prison guards came to mind.) Bell left the old Skoda parked in Bulgaria and was on his way to Turkey to try and slog the first intercontinental six. He smites a ball from Europe into Asia; this is surely a Guiness Book of Records feat.

This highly amusing book, full of crazy incidents and remarkable characters, is also wonderfully illustrated. A photograph of two elderly Slovak babushkas quotes them saying to the author: "Yes, but we are old and we have herpes".

Anyone who likes travel books will be delighted to see such a new talent emerge. And as for cricket buffs...they'd be daft to miss out on this unique perspective on their sport.

My travel guide to Eastern Europe
I bought this book on the advice of a friend before setting off on a recent trip to the Baltic countries. I'm not big into sports and, being American, I didn't even know what cricket was; but by the end of the book I inexplicably found myself rooting for the national Slovenian cricket team and seriously considering a visit to my local psychic. Now I don't know if these are healthy things, but it's a very fun read. It often had me laughing out loud - much to the chagrin of surrounding babushkas.

In short, 'Slogging the Slavs' is hilarious and highly recommended. Some of the included pictures are pretty classic too. The author is a natural storyteller - I'm looking forward to reading his future work.