Crickonomics

Author: Stefan Szymanski
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472992725
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
SELECTED AS ONE OF WATERSTONES BEST SPORT BOOKS OF 2022. A CRICKETER BOOK OF THE YEAR. 'Superb' Matthew Syed, The Times 'Fascinating' The Observer 'Crickonomics is packed with sufficient statistical analysis to have the most ardent cricket geek purring with pleasure' Mail on Sunday 'An insightful, Hawk-Eye-like analysis of the numbers behind cricket' Financial Times An engaging tour of the modern game from an award-winning journalist and the economist who co-authored the bestselling Soccernomics. Why does England rely on private schools for their batters – but not their bowlers? How did demographics shape India's rise? Why have women often been the game's great innovators? Why does South Africa struggle to produce Black Test batters? And how does the weather impact who wins? Crickonomics explores all of this and much more – including how Jayasuriya and Gilchrist transformed Test batting but T20 didn't; English cricket's great missed opportunity to have a league structure like football; why batters are paid more than bowlers; how Afghanistan is transforming German cricket; what the rest of the world can learn from New Zealand and even the Barmy Army's importance to Test cricket. This incisive book will entertain and surprise all cricket lovers. It might even change how you watch the game.

Cricket 2.0

Author: Tim Wigmore
Publisher: Birlinn Ltd
ISBN: 1788851889
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Book Description
WISDEN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 Winner of The Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2020 Heartaches Cricket Book of the Year 'Fascinating . . . essential reading' – Scyld Berry 'A fascinating book, essential for anyone who wishes to understand cricket's new age' – Alex Massie, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 'An invaluable guide' – Mike Atherton, The Times 'excellent . . . both breezily engaging, and full of the format's latest, best and nerdiest thinking' – Gideon Haigh, The Australian 'The century's most original cricket book . . . An absorbing ride . . . some of their revelations come with the startling force of unexpected thunder on a still night' – Suresh Menon, editor Wisden India Almanack Cricket 2.0 is the multi award-winning story of how an old, traditional game was revolutionised by a new format: Twenty20 cricket. The winner of the Wisden Almanack Book of the Year award, the Telegraph Sports Book Awards' Cricket Book of the Year and selected as one of The Cricketer's greatest cricket books of all time, Cricket 2.0 is an essential read both for Test and T20 cricket lovers alike, and all those interested in modern sport. Using exclusive interviews with over 80 leading players and coaches – including Jos Buttler, Ricky Ponting, Kieron Pollard, Eoin Morgan, Brendon McCullum and Rashid Khan – Tim Wigmore and Freddie Wilde chronicle this revolution with insight, forensic analysis and story-telling verve. In the process, they reveal how cricket has been transformed, both on and off the field. Told with vivid clarity and insight, this is the extraordinary and previously misunderstood story of Twenty20, how it is reshaping the sport – and what the future of cricket will look like. Readers will never watch a T20 game in quite the same way again. "For people that love cricket it's really important to read it," said Miles Jupp. "I found it extraordinary."

Cricket, Capitalism and Class

Author: Chris McMillan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000970566
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Book Description
This ambitious new study argues that not only is the story of cricket inescapably entwined with that of capitalism, but that the game provides a unique lens with which to understand the history, development, exigencies and contradictions of capitalist political economy. From the aristocratic capture of the artisan’s game to the commodified entertainment of private T20 leagues, the story of cricket has been told against the background of capitalism. Cricket was the gentlemanly vanguard of the English-led British empire which forged the first iteration of international capitalism that was reliant upon a political and commercial partnership between rulers and the ruled, and today it speaks to the productive tension between the emergence of the Asian century and the power of American cultural imperialism. Reading capitalism as a cultural, economic and political system, this book explores the relationship between cricket and capitalism, and illuminates many of the most important themes in contemporary sport studies, such as class, race, gender, globalisation, nationalism, neoliberalism, commodification and migration. This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport history, the sociology of sport, global political economy, political theory or cultural studies.

Intersections of Sport and Society in Creative Writing

Author: Lee McGowan
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9819955858
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 195

Book Description
This edited collection is positioned at the nexus of sports, society and creative writing. In its explorations of the intersections of sports writing, analysis of literary contributions and examinations of craft, it offers rare consideration of a rich diversity of form in narratives that occur in, and as creative practice. Included in the collection are dynamic academic investigations into football writing and poetry focused on community sporting activities in Afghanistan, to those addressing the intersections of writing and boxing in the reflexive reclamation of the post-trauma self, the absence of women in the rodeo and who and what is represented in our sports shelves. This book breaks new ground in approaches to sport’s role in creative writing and what creative writing can provide in furthering our understanding of sport in society. The works in this edited book draw on a diverse range of methods to interrogate the processes, concepts and liminal spaces through an intersectional array of voices, offering analysis and insight into the application of creative writing knowledge and practice in relation to sport and its impact on wider discipline discussion and research. It is relevant to students and scholars studying and researching creative writing, sports writing, sports studies, cultural studies and sports media studies.

Hitting Against the Spin

Author: Nathan Leamon
Publisher: Constable
ISBN: 9781472131263
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
'Fascinating and insightful . . . lifts the curtain to reveal the inner workings of international cricket. A must-read for any cricketer, coach or fan' Eoin Morgan 'This path-breaking book should be compulsory reading for commentators and captains - and all cricket fans' Mervyn King 'Clever and original but also wise' Ed Smith How valuable is winning the toss? And how should captains use it to their advantage? Why does a cricket ball swing? Why don't Indians bat left-handed? What is a good length and why? Why are leg-spinners so successful in T20 cricket? Why did England win the World Cup? Why do all Test bowlers bowl at either 55 or 85mph? Why don't they pitch it up? All cricketers long to know the answer to these questions and many more. Only fifteen years ago it would have been difficult to answer them - cricket was guided only by decades-old tradition and received wisdom. Data has changed everything. Today we can track every ball to within millimetres; its release point, speed and bounce point are measured as are how much the ball swings, how much it deviates off the pitch, the exact height and line that it passes the stumps, and multiple other variables. Hitting Against the Spin is the story of that data, and what it can tell us about how cricket really works. Leading cricket thinkers Nathan Leamon and Ben Jones lift the lid on international cricket and explain its hidden workings and dynamics - the forces that shape cricket and, in turn, the cricketers who play it. They analyse the unseen hands that determine which players succeed and which fail, which tactics work and which don't, which teams win and which lose. They also explore the new world of franchise cricket as well as the rapid evolution of the T20 format. Revolutionary in its insights, Hitting Against the Spin takes you on a fascinating whistle-stop tour of modern cricket and sports analytics, bringing cricket firmly into the twenty-first century by revealing its long-kept secrets. This is the most important cricket book in decades.

The Privileged Few

Author: Clive Hamilton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509559728
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
Male and white privilege are on the decline, yet elite privilege has gone from strength to strength. The privileges enjoyed by the rich and powerful are not only unfair but cause widespread harm, from the everyday slights and humiliations visited on those lower down the scale to the distortions in the labour market when elites use their networks to secure plum jobs, not least in new domains such as professional sports. In this book, Clive Hamilton and Myra Hamilton show that elite privilege is not a mere by-product of wealth but an organising principle for society as a whole. They explore the practices and processes that sustain, legitimise and reproduce elite privilege and show how we are all implicated in the system, both facilitating it and tolerating its harmful effects. Building on their original fieldwork and a wide range of other sources, the authors paint a vivid picture of the micropolitics of elite privilege, highlighting in particular the vital role played by exclusive private schools. Ranging across topics as diverse as ‘glamour suburbs’, philanthropy, Rhodes scholarships and super-yachts, The Privileged Few delves beneath attempts at concealment to expose how the elites keep getting away with it.

Cricket Explained

Author: Robert Eastaway
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN: 1250120209
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Book Description
Cricket Explained offers the sports enthusiast a user-friendly introduction to baseball's British cousin, a game that shares with America's national pastime the common ancestor "rounders." This is the definitive beginner's guide to the game of cricket, written by Robert Eastaway, a world authority on the sport, and co-inventor of the Coopers & Lybrand World Cricket Ratings System. Cricket Explained takes the reader from the game's fundamental --basic rules, terminology, equipment --to the finer points of strategy, individual playing styles, and cricket lore. The book includes a combined glossary/index for easy reference and is illustrated throughout with the lighthearted drawings of British cartoonist Mark Stevens. So even if you don't know "short leg" from "silly mid off" or a bowler from a batsman, you'll come away from Cricket Explained with an understanding for this truly international sport which, like baseball, is loved both for its elegant simplicity and its vexing complexity. Among the topics covered in Cricket Explained's concise, user-friendly entries are: -- Cricket's history -- Making sense of the action on the field -- Batsmen and the batting order -- Fielders and fielding positions -- Fielding and batting tactics -- Scoring and statistics -- Bowling strategy -- How many players are required -- How runs are scored, outs are made, and a game is won -- Umpires and the rules -- Bowlers and their individual styles -- Different types of cricket played throughout the world

Fast Bowler's Bible

Author: Ian Pont
Publisher: Crowood
ISBN: 1847975364
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Book Description
This fascinating book reveals the secrets of fast bowling and explains how it is possible to simultaneously bowl fast, straight and accurately. The Fast Bowler's Bible is a very practical, easily accessible bowling manual that any seam or swing bowler playing at any level can understand. It contains explosive new information being used by the world's best cricketers."I wish that I had met Ian Pont, the bowling coach, ten years before I did... Ian is an expert in his field and has got some excellent ideas on how to engineer a bowling action." Ronnie Irani, Essex and England. Written by one of the world's best fast-bowling coaches.Well illustrated with sixty photographs and thirty-four diagrams and drawings.Explains what part of your body generates pace and why holding onto the ball longer is far more effective.Unravels the mysteries of advanced biomechanics as they apply to bowling.Reveals how to bowl crushingly effective bouncers and yorkers every time.Discusses what to do in practice and what to avoid.Analyses how to train and exercise in order to produce the best results.Illustrates all the correct grips for each delivery so that you get it right every time.Describes how to increase pace effortlessly, how to adopt the correct mental approach, how to deal with pressure, how to apply it to the opposition, and much more.This invaluable book tells you everything you need to know about how to bowl fast.Packed with tips and tricks, it is essential reading for bowlers of all ages as well as their coaches.Well illustrated with sixty black & white photographs and thirty-four diagrams and drawings.Ian Pont is an expert in his field and one of the world's best fast-bowling coaches.

Beyond a Boundary

Author: Cyril Lionel Robert James
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822313830
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
In C. L. R. James's classic Beyond a Boundary, the sport is cricket and the scene is the colonial West Indies. Always eloquent and provocative, James--the "black Plato," (as coined by the London Times)--shows us how, in the rituals of performance and conflict on the field, we are watching not just prowess but politics and psychology at play. Part memoir of a boyhood in a black colony (by one of the founding fathers of African nationalism), part passionate celebration of an unusual and unexpected game, Beyond a Boundary raises, in a warm and witty voice, serious questions about race, class, politics, and the facts of colonial oppression. Originally published in England in 1963 and in the United States twenty years later (Pantheon, 1983), this second American edition brings back into print this prophetic statement on race and sport in society.

Remarkable Cricket Grounds

Author: Brian Levison
Publisher: Pavilion
ISBN: 9781911663843
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Across six of the seven continents on which cricket is played, there are some remarkable cricket grounds. From a tidal strip of sand outside the Ship Inn at Elie, in Fife, to the monumental Melbourne Cricket Ground with its 100,000 capacity, this book features the extraordinary places and venues in which cricket is played. Many grounds have remarkably beautiful settings. There is the rugged Devonian charm of Lynton and Lynmouth Cricket Club set in the Valley of the Rocks, not far from the North Devon coast. Then there is the vividly-coloured, almost Lego-like structure of Dharamshala pavilion in Northern India. In contrast there are under-threat cricket pitches in North Yorkshire, such as Spout House, where Prince Harry played twice, scored 16, and then got bowled by a 12-year-old. Many of England’s greatest players have come from public schools, and there are some wonderful examples of their cricket grounds such as Sedbergh and Milton Abbey. Country houses such as Audley End and Blenheim Palace form the backdrop to many cricket pitches, or castles, such as Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland, or Raby Castle in County Durham. Sri Lanka’s test ground, Galle, has a fort looming above it, while Newlands Stadium in Cape Town, has the unmistakeable Table Mountain as the backdrop. Some of the stunning imagery has a modern feel. Queenstown cricket ground has international jets taking off just yards from the playing action, while Singapore Cricket Club is an oasis of lush green set against a 21st century array of high-rise towers. Then there are cricket grounds in unusual places; Hawaii, Corfu, Berlin, Slovenia and St Moritz to name but a few.