Product Description

In summer 2009, by far the most popular event in the cricketing calendar comes round again - the Ashes series between England and Australia. The anticipation will be intense, the hype absurd, the sense of expectation never remotely likely to be satisfied, for two good reasons. England won in 2005 by a whisker. We can't expect anything so good again, possibly for the rest of our lives. The second reason is even more brutally realistic. For the truth is that, over the past twenty years at least, Australia have usually won very easily. We begin with hope, we end in despair. For the many of us who follow English cricket closely, it's a strange and terrible form of biennial punishment for crimes we didn't know we had committed. 'Hell is other people,' said Jean-Paul Sartre, and as so often he was completely wrong. Hell is Ricky Ponting winning the toss on a perfect batting strip on a glorious sunny day. Hell is what happened in Australia in 2007, when the home side won 5-0. Of course we look forward to 2009. But we also dread it, as we would dread exams or major surgery. We would be foolish to do otherwise.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86711 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
`Did Berkmann waste his time watching all those Ashes games? This lovely book is proof he did not' Daily Mail --Daily Mail

`By far the best gentle, bleakly comic take on the series' Observer --Observer

`Gripping . . . If not ball by ball then certainly blow by blow, and a wonderful tale it is too . . . Very perceptive and funny' Literary Review --Literary Review

`The book oozes a laddish solidarity . . . Berkmann's wit lays bare the painful vicissitudes of hoping for English success' Independent on Sunday --Independent on Sunday

`Both informative and terrifically funny, Berkmann has written what may be the cricket book of the summer' WBQ
--WBQ

About the Author
Marcus Berkmann writes for the DAILY MAIL and a monthly pop music column for the SPECTATOR, and has written columns on sport for the INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY and PUNCH.

Customer Reviews

Buy everything else by Berkmann, but this was disappointing.
Anyone who loves cricket, particularly the lower levels of amateur cricket, should read Rain Men: Madness of Cricket, an absolutely hilarious book that is half about participating in incompetent village cricket, and half about supporting incompetent England cricketers through the tough years. The follow-up, Zimmer Men (about carrying on playing village cricket despite being over forty and still hopeless), is very nearly as funny, as is Brain Men (about the peculiar English phenonmenon that is the pub quiz, so nothing to do with cricket but still excellent).

This, however, feels like it was distilled in a library out of a load of old Wisden reports by a panicked 6th-former the night before a deadline. It has little of the personal insight and wit of the other books, perhaps because he tried to include too many series, and so ran out of space to embellish. It's not much better than the majority of ghost-written sports-books-by-numbers that are written to cash in on a big event. I find it hard to imagine Berkmann stooping to those levels, but maybe he'd just had a really big gas bill.

Lots of facts, not many laughs
Having been won over by Berkmann's last two cricket books (written for cricket enthusiasts and layman alike, and laugh out loud funny in many places), I was itching to read this with the 2009 Ashes looming. However, this book is very different, covering the Ashes Tests from 1972 til 2007 is great detail. Informative, yes, but rather dry and few laughs to be found. For the newcomer to MB's work, try Rain Men then Zimmermen. Only if you want to revise or relive memories of 'recent' Ashes Tests, should you plump for this.

Superlative for 40-somethings of a certain disposition
What a book! Given to me by my very astute wife for my 47th birthday this month (August 09) I could not put it down. If you're a cricket fan born in the early 60s then this is the book for you. Buy it - now.