Product Description

This summer's Test cricket series between England and Australia is eagerly awaited - in effect, the decider after the two previous series in 2005 and 2007 saw an epic English series victory followed by a trouncing in Australia. Will Flintoff be fit to be England's matchwinner again? Will Australia's bowling attack be any good without Warne and McGrath? Will Kevin Pietersen be able to swing the series our way? Once again, Aurum will be first out with a book about the whole series, and again by top cricket writer Gideon Haigh, whose coverage for the Guardian (for whom he'll be writing again this time) made his name over here. This is not a piece of instant hackwork: this will be a considered and eloquent account of a historic sporting event by possibly the finest writer on cricket at the moment, whose Mystery Spinner (also published by Aurum) has been acclaimed as a 'classic' and a 'small masterpiece'. There will be a large audience for it, and a continuing one. Now England have to do is win...Gideon Haigh's other books for Aurum include Mystery Spinner, Many a Slip, The Big Ship, Bad Company and, most recently, Inside Out. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2010 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-17
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

Haigh is the wittiest and most balanced writer in Ashes cricket today
Its no surprise that Gideon Haigh has written such a wonderful account of a strangely compelling series - in fact, the major joy in this book is to find so much Haigh in it. Tracking down all his articles even with a decent Internet search is all but impossible, so finding them all together in this collection is indispensible. He starts from the agonies of winter 2008-9 for the Aussies, with wonderful vignettes on Symonds ('looking at his bat as if he wished it would turn into a fishing rod' and Hayden (the E.J.Thribb tribute), on Pietersen and his battles with authority and team-building, on the great Shane. Looking back on Australia's patchy form coming into the Ashes, it becomes clearer why they felt the 'mental disintegration' in summer 2009 - and that Adam Gilchrist identified the same lack of team 'mateship' in 2005. What is more impressive is England's failure to disintegrate first, and his analysis of Strauss, of Swann and of other vital characters holding England together is compelling. A wonderful read, warming you through the long winter evenings - treat yourself and pretend to buy it for someone's else, sneakily reading it yourself first!