Agnew - Cricket: a modern anthology

Contents

Jonathan Agnew was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire and brought up on a farm in Stamford, Lincolnshire. He went to Uppingham School before becoming a professional cricketer with Leicestershire. He went on to play 218 matches for his county, taking 666 first-class wickets, including five in an innings on 37 occasions. He played three Tests and three one-day internationals for England and was named one of Wisdens five Cricketers of the Year in 1988.

He retired in 1990 to become cricket correspondent of the Today newspaper and the following year succeeded Christopher Martin-Jenkins as the BBCs cricket correspondent. He won the Sony Radio award for Best Reporter in 1992 and in 1994, following the death of Brian Johnston, became the presenter of Test Match Special, commentating and reporting on the England cricket team around the world. In 2010, the Association of Sports Journalists named Agnew Best Radio Broadcaster of the Year, the same year that Test Match Special also won Best Radio Programme.

Jonathan has toured the world for 22 years as a cricket correspondent. He lives in the Vale of Belvoir with his wife Emma, four dogs and a cat.

It would be a great shame if cricket writing became exclusively the domain of former first-class cricketers. While we bring insight, knowledge and experience of the game that can only be gained from actually having been out there and done it, there is much more to cricket writing than that.

Indeed there is, and who better to present a new collection of the best cricket writing of the modern era than todays voice of cricket. As a young boy watching his newly-discovered cricketing heroes on a grainy black-and-white television, Jonathan Agnew quickly fell in love with the game and went on to pursue a career as a professional player who represented his country before becoming one of the outstanding broadcasters of his generation.

Taking the infamous 1932/33 Ashes Bodyline series as his starting point, Agnew or, as he is better known, Aggers, selects the most entertaining, crafted and varied cricket writing to illuminate his personal reflections on a series of topics that dissect and explore the modern game from the era of Bradman and Larwood up to the present day.

Cricket: A Modern Anthology features a wide range of contributors including John Arlott, Neville Cardus, Mike Brearley, Simon Hughes, Michael Atherton, Jim Maxwell, Marcus Berkmann, Richie Benaud and Geoffrey Moorhouse.

This is a book brimming with personality and depth that sheds considerable light on the enduring fascination with, arguably, the greatest game ever played.

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This book has been a sizeable undertaking and has relied upon the enthusiasm and expertise of many colleagues and friends, a genuine team effort.

My grateful thanks first and foremost must go to the writers who have contributed to this anthology. Their insights into the great game, eloquence, wit and willingness to put my desire to include their work ahead of the demands of the wallet has ultimately led to a wide, varying and fascinating collection of extracts.

This book could never have been undertaken without the tremendous resource that is the MCC Library at Lords. Neil Robinson and his team of Andrew Trigg, Zoe English and Linda Gordon, along with archivists Robert Curphey and Alan Rees, have made the days of research a pleasure, and their expertise, advice and direction has ensured that the book is significantly better than it might otherwise have been.

Rick Mayston and his team at Getty Images have thrown themselves into the picture research with skill and enthusiasm. Andre Gailani at Punch deserves a special mention for locating and supplying the wonderful cartoons dotted throughout the book, aided by the consummate research and archiving of all cricket-related Punch material by David Rayvern Allen.

The book you hold in your hands has been designed by Marcus Nichols with inspiration by typographer Tim Lewis at Unreal.

Tim Jollands has done an excellent job of taming my own words; any mistakes, of course, remain entirely my responsibility.

Finally, I am immensely grateful to my publisher Patrick Janson-Smith, who has had enormous faith in the idea all along, and my agents Michael Doggart and Jonathan Hayden, who have kept the project on the rails even when I have had to disappear on overseas tours.

We are grateful for permission to include the following extracts:

John Arlott: Fred:Portrait of a Fast Bowler and Indian Summer (Eyre Methuen, 1972, and Longmans, 1947) reprinted with the permission of Tim Arlott for the Estate of John Arlott.

Richie Benaud: A Tale of Two Tests: With Some Thoughts on Captaincy and Willow Patterns (Sportsmans Book Club, 1962, and Hodder, 1969) both reprinted with the permission of the author.

Marcus Berkmann: Rain Men: The Madness of Cricket and Zimmer Men: The Trials and Tribulations of the Ageing Cricketer (Little, Brown Book Group, 1996, and 2005) reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Sir Derek Birley: A Social History of English Cricket (Aurum, 1999) reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Geoffrey Boycott: BoycottOn Cricket (Partridge Press, 1990) reprinted with the permission of the author.

Mike Brearley: The Art of Captaincy (Hodder, 1985) reprinted with the permission of the author.

R. Chandrasekar: The Goat, the Sofa and Mr Swami (Hachette India, 2010) reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Max Davidson: Well GetEm in Sequins: Manliness, Yorkshire Cricket and the Century That Changed Everything (John Wisden & Co Ltd, 2012) reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Basil DOliveira: The Basil DOliveira Affair (Collins, 1969) reprinted with the permission of Damian DOliveira for the estate of Basil DOliveira.

Christopher Douglas: Jardine, A Spartan Cricketer (Allen and Unwin, 1984) reprinted with the permission of the author.

Gideon Haigh: Sphere of Influence: Writings on Cricket and its Discontents (Melbourne University Press, 2011) reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Duncan Hamilton: Harold Larwood (Quercus, 2009) reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Ed Hawkins: Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Heart of Crickets Underworld (Bloomsbury, 2012) reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Matthew Hayden: Standing My Ground (Aurum, 2011) reprinted with the permission of the publisher.

Simon Hughes: A Lot of Hard Yakka (Headline, 1997) reprinted with the permission of the author.