By Charles Randall
3 June 2015
This year there were two books about Kevin Pietersen in the short list for the Cricket Society and MCC book of the year award. It was somehow not surprising that neither of these admirable works won the prize at the recent dinner at Lord's. Had we not heard enough of KP to last a lifetime?
The £3,000 prize went to Dan Waddell for Field Of Shadows, an account of a club cricketers tour by the Gentlemen of Worcestershire of Berlin in 1937, with the full blessing of the Nazi regime. The author admitted this fascinating story had taken over his life for two years of research.
KP The Autobiography was a ghosted book by David Walsh. Perhaps Pietersen was fortunate that few other journalists could have produced such a readable work that the chairman of judges, Vic Marks, admitted he couldn't put down. It was quite a coincidence that KP was on his way to his triple hundred for Surrey at the Kia Oval on the day of the awards announcement. Walsh's book was extensively serialised and quoted in the national media, though normally this sort of self-serving guff would not make the cricket book of the year short list. Simon Wilde's offering On Pietersen was scrupulously balanced, quoting the views of many people to produce material to feed the reader's view on a cricketer who had split public opinion. All the six award books were published in 2014.
Waddell's book was far richer in content, detailing extraordinary events and making educated guesses to fill in the gaps in narrative after the Worcestershire club cricketers had accepted an invitation by a fiery cricket-mad German to play matches in Berlin. The Nazis were not slow to see propaganda opportunities.
Wounded Tiger: A History of Cricket in Pakistan by Peter Oborne and The Final Over: the Cricketers of Summer 1914 by Christopher Sandford were triumphs of research that were fancied to win a high-quality competition that has been running since 1970. The sixth entry - about Hedley Verity's bowling feat of 1932 titled 10 For 10 – painted a picture of a great Yorkshire cricketer. The life of Verity had won this award for Alan Hill in 1986, but not for Chris Waters this time after his prize-winning look at Fred Trueman in 2012.
A book that caught the eye in the long list, from a club player's perspective, was The Country House Cricketer by Peter Langman, whose own cricket-playing career was afflicted by Parkinson's Disease. This is more country house as it is now, rather than as it was. Cricket is fortunate in that the sport inspires a steady flow of high-quality books seemingly every year.
3 June 2015
This year there were two books about Kevin Pietersen in the short list for the Cricket Society and MCC book of the year award. It was somehow not surprising that neither of these admirable works won the prize at the recent dinner at Lord's. Had we not heard enough of KP to last a lifetime?
The £3,000 prize went to Dan Waddell for Field Of Shadows, an account of a club cricketers tour by the Gentlemen of Worcestershire of Berlin in 1937, with the full blessing of the Nazi regime. The author admitted this fascinating story had taken over his life for two years of research.
KP The Autobiography was a ghosted book by David Walsh. Perhaps Pietersen was fortunate that few other journalists could have produced such a readable work that the chairman of judges, Vic Marks, admitted he couldn't put down. It was quite a coincidence that KP was on his way to his triple hundred for Surrey at the Kia Oval on the day of the awards announcement. Walsh's book was extensively serialised and quoted in the national media, though normally this sort of self-serving guff would not make the cricket book of the year short list. Simon Wilde's offering On Pietersen was scrupulously balanced, quoting the views of many people to produce material to feed the reader's view on a cricketer who had split public opinion. All the six award books were published in 2014.
Waddell's book was far richer in content, detailing extraordinary events and making educated guesses to fill in the gaps in narrative after the Worcestershire club cricketers had accepted an invitation by a fiery cricket-mad German to play matches in Berlin. The Nazis were not slow to see propaganda opportunities.
Wounded Tiger: A History of Cricket in Pakistan by Peter Oborne and The Final Over: the Cricketers of Summer 1914 by Christopher Sandford were triumphs of research that were fancied to win a high-quality competition that has been running since 1970. The sixth entry - about Hedley Verity's bowling feat of 1932 titled 10 For 10 – painted a picture of a great Yorkshire cricketer. The life of Verity had won this award for Alan Hill in 1986, but not for Chris Waters this time after his prize-winning look at Fred Trueman in 2012.
A book that caught the eye in the long list, from a club player's perspective, was The Country House Cricketer by Peter Langman, whose own cricket-playing career was afflicted by Parkinson's Disease. This is more country house as it is now, rather than as it was. Cricket is fortunate in that the sport inspires a steady flow of high-quality books seemingly every year.