Download or read book A Social History of English Cricket written by Derek Birley and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed as a magisterial, classic work, A Social History of English Cricket is an encyclopaedic survey of the game, from its humble origins all the way to modern floodlit finishes. But it is also the story of English culture, mirrored in a sport that has always been a complex repository of our manners, hierarchies and politics. Derek Birley’s survey of the impact on cricket of two world wars, Empire and ‘the English caste system’, will, contends Ian Wooldridge, ‘teach an intelligent child of twelve more about their heritage than he or she will ever pick up at school.’ In just under 400 pages Birley takes us through a rich historical tapestry: how the game was snatched from rustic obscurity by gentlemanly gamblers; became the height of late eighteenth century metropolitan fashion; was turned into both symbol and synonym for British imperialism; and its more recent struggle to dislodge the discomforting social values preserved in the game from its imperial heyday. Superbly witty and humorous, peopled by larger-than-life characters from Denis Compton to Ian Botham, and wholly forswearing nostalgia, A Social History of English Cricket is a tour-de-force by one of the great writers on cricket.
Download or read book Anyone But England written by Mike Marqusee and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anyone But England is a timely and entertaining exploration of the bonds which the English cricket to the English nation as both face apparently inexorable decline. Mike Marqusee, an American who has lived in England for twenty years, turns the amused gaze of an outsider on to the idiosyncrasies of the English at play, delving into the interminable wrangles over coloured clothing, covered pitches and commercial sponsorship. Yet Marqusee also displays the knowledgeability and passion of a dedicated cricket follower who has watched matches on four continents. His elegant and concise accounts of the origins of the game, its romance with the British Empire, and its traumatic adjustment to the modern market lift the lid on the paradoxes and hypocrisies that have made cricket what it is: democratic and elitist, national and international, ancient and modern. In a revealing scrutiny of the long saga of South Africa's exclusion from world cricket, Marqusee charts England's collusion with apartheid. Spectacularly failing the Tebbit test on every point, his eye-opening account of Pakistan's controversial 'ball-tampering' tour of England will provoke intense debate amongst cricket fans about the role of both the media and racism in the modern game. From the phoney war over the omission of Gower from the England side to England's women cricketers receiving the World Cup outside the Lord's pavilion from which they are banned, Anyone But England goes where no cricket book has gone before. In so doing it sheds new light not only on cricket but also on what it means to be part of a nation for whom the game is well and truly up.
Download or read book Different Class written by Duncan Stone and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Cricket Writers Club 'Book of the Year' 2022 and the Sunday Times Sports Book Awards 'Cricket Book of the Year' 2023 In telling the story of cricket from the bottom up, Different Class demonstrates how the "quintessentially English" game has done more to divide, rather than unite, the English. In 1963, the West Indian Marxist C.L.R. James posed the deceptively benign question: "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?" A challenge to the public to re-consider cricket and its meaning by placing the game in its true social, political and economic context, James was, all too subtly, attempting to counter the game’s orthodox history that, he argued, had played a key role in the formation of national culture. As a consequence, he failed, and the history of cricket in England has retained the same stresses and lineaments as it did a century ago — until now. In examining recreational rather than professional (first-class) cricket, Different Class does not simply challenge the widely accepted orthodoxy of English cricket, it demonstrates how the values and belief systems at its heart were, under the guise of amateurism, intentionally developed in order to divide the English along class lines at every level of the game. If the creation of opposing class-based cricket cultures in the North and South of England grew out of this process, the institutional structures developed by those in charge of English cricket continue to discriminate. But, as much as the exclusion of Black and South Asian cricketers from the recreational mainstream is the most obvious example, it is social class that remains the greatest barrier to participation in what used to be the national game.
Download or read book The Immortals of English Cricket written by Bill Ricquier and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-23 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Immortals of English Cricket, Bill Ricquier tells the cricketing life stories of eleven of England's greatest (male) cricketers. Ricquier selects his Immortal English team from players who didn't just dominate, they changed the game with their sheer will. Those portrayed include: Jack Hobbs, the highest run-scorer in the history of first-class cricket; Ian Botham, who was the most famous sportsman in the country in the 1980s; and James Anderson, England's leading Test wicket taker. Selected also is Wilfred Rhodes, the legendary slow left arm bowler who made almost 40,000 first-class runs and took over 4,000 first-class wickets, and the extraordinary Fred Trueman, described as the "finest bloody fast bowler that ever drew breath." The Immortals of English Cricket will inspire discussion, debate and controversy but indisputably represents a team of remarkable skill and character, one to proudly represent the Crown and Three Lions on any Elysian field.
Download or read book The Summer Field A History of English Cricket Since 1840 written by Mark Rowe and published by Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cricket has come a long way since players could only travel on foot, or by horse and cart. Some things never change; someone has to bat, someone bowl, someone be captain; everyone has to learn. The game is nothing without cricketers; yet the men (or women) on the field are never the full story, as The Summer Field shows. It includes spectators, journalists, ground-keepers, coaches, umpires, selectors and tea ladies. Nor is it only the story of the greatest players, such as Sydney Barnes and Herbert Sutcliffe; we meet also Will Richards, the Nottingham school-teacher; his friend George Wakerley, the job-hunting club professional; and Freeman Barnardo, of Eton and Cambridge. This history of cricket since the coming of the railways seeks to answer questions, such as: what was it like to play cricket in the past? Who played it, and why did they? And why are the English so obsessed with Australia?
Download or read book Cricket and England written by Mr Jack Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at the inter-war period, this work explores the relationship between cricket and English social and cultural values.
Download or read book The Plan How Fletcher and Flower Transformed English Cricket written by Steve James and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1999, England slumped to a new low in their tumultuous cricket history. Defeat at home by a mediocre New Zealand team saw them fall to the bottom of the world Test rankings, below even Zimbabwe. Yet only just over a decade later, England reached the top. It was a remarkable and profound transformation, brought about largely by two men with an insatiable desire to succeed, Duncan Fletcher and Andy Flower. In The Plan, Steve James tells the story of the renaissance of English cricket from a unique perspective. As the former batting partner of ECB managing director Hugh Morris, a player under Fletcher at Glamorgan and Flower's closest confidant in the press corps, James is the perfect analyst of this period in cricket history. From crucial choices of captain to innovative coaching and a complete overhaul of training and preparation for matches, it is the tale of a refusal to be second best. And in examining Fletcher and Flower's background in Zimbabwe, where James himself played, he uncovers the continental shift behind the turnaround. It is the story of how English steel was melded with African fire to create the most potent combination in world cricket.
Download or read book Class Peace An Analysis of Social Status and English Cricket 1846 1962 written by Eric Midwinter and published by Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cricket, in its modern formulation, was in the ascendant as a national sport from early Victorian times to the immediate post-World War II years. That corresponded, roughly, to a hundred or so years span in which the working and middle classes were most distinctively identified – and yet were most solidly united in values and attitudes. This curious amalgam of cross-class ‘cultural integration’ characterised cricket then, most notably in the ‘Gentlemen and Players’ convention but also in recreational cricket and among what was in those days the huge spectatorship for cricket. County cricket, especially, with its unusual combine of the plebeian professional and the bourgeois amateur, is a classic example of how an aspiring working class and an earnest middle class contrived to find common ground, and even some mutual respect, without ever disturbing the overt social barriers. In cricket, as in society at large, there was ‘class peace’ rather than class war.
Download or read book Arlott Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket written by Stephen Fay and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH CRICKET BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019 'Beautifully written, meticulously researched and stuffed with rich sporting and social history ... Unputdownable' Mail on Sunday After the Second World War, as the BBC tightened its grip on the national consciousness, two of the most famous English voices were commentators on games of cricket. John Arlott and E.W. ('Jim') Swanton transformed the broadcasting of the nation's summer game into a national institution. Arlott and Swanton typified the contrasting aspects of post-war Britain. Because of their strong personalities and distinctive voices – Swanton's crisp and upper-class, Arlott's with its Hampshire burr – each had a loyal following. As England moved from a class-based to a more egalitarian society, nothing stayed the same – including professional cricket. Wise, lively and filled with rich social and sporting history, Arlott, Swanton and the Soul of English Cricket shows how, as the game entered a new era, these two very different men battled to save the soul of the game. _______________________ 'Magnificent ... One of the best cricket books I've read in years: it makes long-forgotten matches live and breathe as though they were played yesterday' Daily Mail, Books of the Year 'A triumph ... [Kynaston and Fay] both have inside-outside sensitivities that keep this near-seamless collaboration shrewd, worldly, balanced and fresh' Times Literary Supplement
Download or read book Cricket and England written by Mr Jack Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking at the inter-war period, this work explores the relationship between cricket and English social and cultural values.
Download or read book England The Biography written by Simon Wilde and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-07-24 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'An astonishing work of research, detail and revelation. Bulging with information, packed with nuggets.' John Etheridge, Sun 'Superbly researched... His eye for detail never wavers. It’s a pleasure to read.' Vic Marks, Observer 'The Cricket Book of the Year: Dauntingly comprehensive and surprisingly light-footed.' Simon Briggs, Daily Telegraph England: The Biography is the most comprehensive account of the England cricket team that has ever been published, taking the reader into the heart of the action and the team dynamics that have helped shape their success, or otherwise. It is now 140 years since England first played Test match cricket and, for much of that time, it has struggled to perform to the best of its capabilities. In the early years, amateurs would pick and choose which matches and tours they would play; subsequently, the demands of the county game - and the petty jealousies that created - would prevent many from achieving their best. It was only in the 1990s that central contracts were brought in, and Team England began to receive the best possible support from an ever-increasing backroom team. But cricket isn't just about structures, it depends like no other sport on questions of how successful the captain is in motivating and leading his team, and how well different personalities and egos are integrated and managed in the changing room. From Joe Root and Alastair Cook back to Mike Atherton, Mike Brearley and Ray Illingworth, England captains have had a heavy influence on proceedings. Recent debates over Kevin Pietersen were nothing new, as contemporaries of W.G.Grace would doubtless recognise. As England play their 1000th Test, this is a brilliant and unmissable insight into the ups and downs of that story.
Download or read book The Official England Cricket Annual 2024 written by Andy Greeves and published by . This book was released on 2023-12-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Official England Cricket Annual 2023 is a must-read for England cricket fans. We profile all the members of both the England Men' s and Women' s squads, plus we take a look back at some match action from 2023.Elsewhere in this Annual, there is an introduction to All Stars and Dynamos Cricket, as well as a variety of fun features including games and puzzles for everyone to enjoy. IMAGE FOR ILLUSTRATION ONLY
Download or read book Cricket and community in England written by Peter Davies and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available in paperback for the first time, Cricket and Community in England: 1800 to the Present Day is a path-breaking enquiry into the social history of the summer game. It is written by two specialist cricket historians and based on extensive primary research. It traces the history of the sport at grassroots level from its origins right up to the present day. It will appeal to the cricket historian and the general sports enthusiast alike. The book has two main goals: to provide readers with an accessible introduction to the history of grassroots cricket in England and to supply a clear overview of the different phases of this history. The structure of book is chronological but also thematic. The six chapters look at such issues as early cricket, the origins of clubs, competition, the two world wars, multiculturalism and cricket in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Talks with Old English Cricketers written by Alfred William Pullin and published by . This book was released on 1900 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Australian Cricket Team in England in 1948 written by and published by PediaPress. This book was released on with total page 803 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book England and Eternity a Book of Cricket written by Declan Kiberd and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A teasing but affectionate study of the genius of the English people as seen from a postcolonial perspective - and of the game of cricket which, along with Shakespeare and Houses of Parliament, was one of their richest, strangest and most lasting gifts to the wider world. Cricket is the strangest game. It features idealism, brutality, low comedy, high intelligence, luck and sheer bravery in equal measure - and often achieves the condition of art. Declan Kiberd's remarkable book is a celebration of cricket through the ages of the oddities of the people who love and play it, and he evokes brilliantly what it is like to be 'out there' on the field of play. Although the modern game is rooted in the gentle rural England described by L.P. Hartley and George Orwell, it has in its more modern versions come to reflect the industrial power and intermittent violence of modern life. England and Eternity is a teasing but affectionate study of the genius of the English people as seen from a postcolonial perspective - and of the game which, along with Shakespeare and Houses of Parliament, was one of their richest, strangest and most lasting gifts to the wider world.
