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This second edition of Young Wisden is the perfect introduction to one of the most enjoyable world sports. Packed with hundreds of new colour photographs and illustrations, and completely updated to include the latest stats and stars, this vibrantly designed book really brings the game to life. The authors take a wry look at every aspect of the game that a new fan could wish to know about, including: the basics - from how to read the scorecard to a crash course in the language types of cricket - the Twenty20, one-day and first-class formats of the game at all levels, from beach cricket through to international Test cricket batsmen, bowlers, fielders, keepers and thinkers - what it takes to be great in each position and plenty of info on the best there has been the world of cricket - the Test nations, the great grounds, and the fans on tour history, humour and numbers - the playing greats, the grudge matches, the records, and villains and tricksters.Written for children, there are sure to be plenty of adults taking a look over their shoulder at this brilliant introduction to cricket. "Incomparablereally, different planet stuff.It is comprehensive without being bewildering,colourful but not showy, confident but never esoteric. It is also superblydesigned." The Wisden Cricketer "Packed withinformation ...this is perfect for the youngsters whoprefer Pietersen to Rooney." The Times "Thecricketing world's bible specially written for children." The Economist ... Read more

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Whether you’re a weekend cricketer or aspiring armchair expert, Cricket For Dummies helps you make sense of this fascinating sport. Not just a jargon busting guide to cricket’s laws, techniques and tactics, it also contains advice on kitting yourself out and provides lessons on playing the game and improving your batting, bowling and fielding skills. For the budding fan, there’s a guide to the greatest players, the memorable matches, and a tour through the cricketing scene – both domestic and international – giving you the knowledge you need to fully appreciate this special game.

This book has been updated for the Ashes 2009, featuring revised information on new players, the Indian premier league, Stanford 20:20 and the latest coverage of past and future competitions.

Julian Knight is a BBC journalist, writer, and cricket enthusiast. He is a former youth coach and captain, and has been a club cricketer for over 20 years.
Consultant Editor Gary Palmer played first class cricket for ten years with Somerset before becoming a professional coach. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Cricket for Dummies
Transaction was very pleasant. Book was a birthday gift present, so I haven't read it.

Valuable - but has problems
This is a good book. However, it is not really a good first book. In fact, it is short on one of the most needed features for the beginner: an exhaustive index of all those nutty terms. Eg. try to find a "Chinaman".

Of course, this book has considerable information on many items that are really needed. e.g. the 'how-to' of bowling many of those strange throws.

I would suggest reading "Cricket Explained" by Robert Eastaway first. It is shorter and initially more useful. You will also want "Cricket for Dummies" as well. If there is an Amazon special for both - go for it.

Not dummy enough
While the author attempts to dumb down the rules of the game, it's obvious that the book is written by an Englishman for Britons, or those who have had at least some experience with cricket. (I live in Texas, and the only crickets I know are those noisy bugs or Buddy Holly's band.)

Some concepts are never fully explained, while others are covered in minute detail. For example, the batting section goes on and on, with numerous illustrations, while the section on bowling is comparatively brief. We could really use a step-by-step -- with pictures -- examination of the basic bowling process and less on different techniques.

Also, the book focuses too much on playing and coaching the game. I'd much rather read more about the history of cricket. The section on cricket controversies and great players is nice, but way too short.

Finally, while Mr. Knight's enthusiasm for the game is obvious, alas, his jokes are pretty lame.

Depends what you were hoping for
I was a bit disappointed in this book because I was hoping to learn about cricket so that I could better understand when I am watching a match. About half this book is spent on tips on how to play and practice cricket.

Great reference for US cricket enthusiasts
I fell in love with Cricket while deployed to Diego Garcia several years ago.We watched Cricket matches broadcast to on South African satellite TV.For anyone who hasn't a clue what the game is all about, this book is a FABULOUS read.Though most of the references to teams and County Cricket are obviously more meaningful to British readers, the level of detail and explanation is great for US fans.Breakdowns on the fielding, bowling, and batting aspects of the game flow smoothly and are extremely easy to follow.The history and current state of the game sections give you a real feel for just how very large Cricket is in the rest of the world and makes my sorry we can't embrace what is really the most civilized of sporting events still being played. (What 300 pound lineman would be caught dead taking "Drinks" or the "Tea Interval" at halftime at the Super Bowl?!)Pick up a copy and get a good handle on the great game that we turned into baseball! ... Read more

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Ten years in the making, this book is truly complete and the first of its kind.

The Art and Science of Cricket represents the groundbreaking partnership between international cricket coach Bob Woolmer and renowned sports scientist Tim Noakes, who combined their skills to create this one-of-a-kind encyclopedic guide to cricket.

The author provides exhaustive instruction and guidance, covering the entire range of techniques and strategies. Explanatory illustrations, anecdotes and handy tips from some of the game's greatest players are also included.

Some of the features are:

• Advice on batting, bowling, fielding and wicket-keeping
• Woolmer's personal philosophies
• Unique insights on the required mental skills
• Training, nutrition and injuries
• Clothing, equipment and the rules of cricket
• Cutting-edge research on the science and medicine of cricket
• Action photos of international league play
• Cricketing lore for lovers of the game.

The Art and Science of Cricket is the ultimate book for cricket fans, players and coaches.

Customer Reviews (1)

About the 2009 Edition from Firefly
This is a review for the 2009 Edition from Firefly...

This book is a monster! Large-format hardback, 655 pp, a little under 5 pounds. Pictorial hardback boards with a sewn binding. Illustrations throughout, including some color plates.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part I: Discovering Cricket
- The Challenge of Cricket
- The Mind Game

Part II: Cricket Techniques
- Batting
- Vision and Batting
- Bowling
- Fielding and Wicket-keeping

Part III: Thinking Cricket
- Strategy and Captaincy
- Statistics: A View of the Future?
- Coaching

Part IV: Cricket Science
- Physiology and Fitness
- Whither Cricket? The Future of the Game

Bibliography
Index ... Read more

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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 a world authority on the sport, the co-inventor of the Coopers & Lybrand World Cricket Ratings System. Cricket Explained takes the reader from the game's fundamentals -- 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 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

At last, Cricket explained
At last, Cricket explained in a truly readable and amusing style. Other books plod through the process like a food recipe. This books takes you on a journey. A fantastic companion for any sports enthusiast!

It is, although my explanation is simpler
Cricket, the most civilised of sports upon which mighty empires have been built. Who can resist the thwack of willow on leather, the sight of a well-delivered googly and the stomach-rumbling appeal of interval tea and cake?
The answer is many of my American friends, who mock this noble sport and titter at the terminology. This is a bit rich given that Tight End is not to them a description of a pert maiden but a position played in football: itself a most self-contradictory description given how little the foot actually meets the ball!

I suspect their mocking is merely a smokescreen put up to hide their ignorance (and therefore appreciation) of this, the sport of champions. To them, I commend this admirable tome as the obvious antidote. My only reservation is the wordiness of the explanation. By contrast, I was brought up having the rules explained to me thus:

"You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that is in the side that is in goes out, and when he is out he comes in and the next man goes in until he is out. When they are all out, the side that is out comes in and the side that is been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game."

deceptive title
Robert Eastaway wrote a terrific little book called "What Is A Googly?", which is a beginner's guide to the game of cricket.Knowing this, I ordered what I thought was a second book on the topic.Sadly, it is the same book, printed from the same plates.Only the title is different.I'd give it 5 stars if I didn't think this reprint with new title was verging on fraud.

A great book for the novice
I caught the cricket bug recently, but didn't really know what the game was all about. This book covers play, rules and general information about the game in an entertaining manner.

Nice and Quick Reference
This book can be both used as a reference and an introduction to Cricket. It explains some of the more difficult concepts and terms in a quick and easy-to-understand manner.

... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

A thorough book covering all basic aspects of the game
The skills of cricket provides a very authorative guide to the basicskills of cricket. It includes all the major aspects of cricket such asbatting, fast bowling, spin bowling and less written about aspects such ascaptaincy and the mental approach to the game. The sections on'Frequently-Asked Questions' are also very useful. Whilst going intosufficient detail to satisfy all except those at the highest level of thegame, this book never manages to lose or confuse its reader. The perfectgift for any aspiring, young cricketer!! ... Read more

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A collection of cricketing tales gathered from the past 150 years of the game. These stories range from the bizarre to the hilarious. ... Read more

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A Must have for cricket fans
If you're a cricket fan, there aren't many books out there for you. However, in this book, Andrew Ward tells about some legendary matches, some of which happened back in the 1800's. If you like cricket, get this book! ... Read more

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Cricket was played in Virginia in 1710 and was enjoyed on Georgia plantations in 1737. Teams representing New York and Philadelphia faced each other as early as 1838. By 1865, Philadelphia was considered the best cricket-playing city in the United States, competing against Canadian, English and Australian teams from 1890 to 1920. This 30 year span was essential to the formation of America’s sports identity—and by its end, while the sport of baseball drew increasing attention, the game of cricket moved from being the game of America’s aristocrats to a safe haven for America’s nonwhite immigrants who were excluded from baseball because of Jim Crow laws.

Here, the game’s unique multi-ethnic, religious and cultural tradition in the United States is fully explored. The author explains cricket’s ties to the beginnings of baseball and covers the ways in which the game continues to play an important role in America’s inner cities. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

moves slow, narrative lost in heavy details
Very dense.A lot of details that aren't thoroughly explained and make the pace of the narrative very slow.Needed an editor. ... Read more

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Australia's leading cricket writer describes and analyses Australia's cricket supremacy over the last three decades - the players, the tactics, the controversies. ... Read more

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Great read if a little selective
I really enjoyed reading this book - all in one sitting on a flight to Singapore. It adds an inciteful and captivating description of the rise of the Australian juggernaut that ruled cricket for the last decade. There were also interesting peaks into the rise (and fall) of World Series Cricket and the emergence of player power.I guess my only dissapointment was that the narrative ignored some important Test series altogether, principally because they distracted from the theme of escalating dominance; but that aside, I would recommend this book to cricket nuts everywhere ... Read more

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Part of the "Successful Sports" series, this book on cricket covers three of the six Areas of Activity recommended for Physical Education at Key Stages 2 and 3. It is written for the young sports enthusiast. It includes clear descriptions of: skills, tactics and rules; specially shot photographs of children demonstrating the key skills; action shots of star players now and from the past; and fact circles full of interesting trivia. ... Read more

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In this book, the authors, who consider themselves fans and analysts in equal measure, follow the career of the cricketing demigod - his advent, his peak, his fall, and his resurrection. Armed with irrefutable statistical data, which they contextualize and analyse with rigour, the authors seek to end all debate on Tendulkar's status as the greatest cricketer of the modern era. ... Read more

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In the last twenty years, Indian cricket has been transformed. With the arrival of global television networks, mass-media coverage and multinational sponsors, cricket has become big business and India has become the economic driving force in the world game. For the first time a developing country has become a major player in the international sports arena.
This fully updated and revised edition of Mihir Boses classic history is a unique account of the Indian cricket phenomenon. Drawing on a combination of extensive research and personal experience, Bose traces the development of the Indian game from its beginnings as a colonial pastime to its coming of age as a national passion and now a global commercial powerhouse. This illuminating study reveals Indian crickets central place in modern India's identity, culture and society.
Insightful, honest and challenging, Bose tackles the myths and controversies of Indian cricket. He considers the game in terms of race, caste, politics, national consciousness and ambition, money, celebrity and the media, evoking all the unpredictability, frustration and glory that is the magic of Indian cricket. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good book overall
It is hard to describe the contents of the book. The book is not divided into years and neither does it have chronological list of all the major landmarks of Indian cricket. However, it provides a lot of information which is otherwise not known ... Read more

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It is generally forgotten that cricket rather than rugby union was the 'national game' in New Zealand until the early years of the twentieth century. This book shows why and how cricket developed in New Zealand and how its character changed across time. Greg Ryan examines the emergence and growth of cricket in relation to diverse patterns of European settlement in New Zealand - such as the systematic colonization schemes of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the gold discoveries of the 1860s. He then considers issues such as cricket and social class in the emerging cities; cricket and the elite school system; the function of the game in shaping relations between the New Zealand provinces; cricket encounters with the Australian colonies in the context of an 'Australasian' world.
A central theme is cricketing relations with England at a time when New Zealand society was becoming acutely conscious of both its own identity and its place within the British Empire. This imperial relationship reveals structures, ideals and objectives unique to New Zealand. Articulate, engaging and entertaining, Ryan demonstrates convincingly how the cricketing experience of New Zealand was quite different from that of other colonies. ... Read more

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Features images and biographies of the top 100 cricketers in Ireland's history. This book features - amongst others - Ed Joyce, Jeremy Bray, Alec O'Riordan, Dermott Monteith, Niall O'Brien, Alan Lewis, Sir Tim O'Brien, Jimmy Boucher, Angus Dunlop and Ossie Colhoun. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent for the cricket fanatic!
Purchased for my 16 year old nephew.He thinks reading is a curse ... but he read this book!!!
I flipped through and it is filled with a wealth of information and it is well laid out.
The print is a bit fine though.
Great source of information on the much contended sport of Cricket.
... Read more

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The Wisden Book of Test Cricket, first published in 1979, is well established as an invaluable and unique source of reference essential to any cricket library. This new volume includes full scorecards and match reports from 1877 to 1977. Originally edited by Bill Frindall, this new volume brings collectors' libraries up to date, ensuring they have a complete and accurate record - essential for any truly self-respecting cricket enthusiast. ... Read more

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Looking back over 90 years of cricket, this collection of photographs is a visual celebration of the quintissential summer sport. From the village green to famous world-class cricket grounds, each picture captures a moment that is out of the ordinary in a game of technique, luck and skill. ... Read more