The Character of Cricket

For this highly entertaining and unusual book, enhanced by Paul Cox's illustrations, Tim Heald toured England, absorbing the flavour of at least one cricket ground in every first-class county, and a good many more besides.

Here we have the character of each ground in memorable detail. In conversation with the kind of people who give the game its backbone - a gateman at Leicester, the groundsman at Swansea, a programme-seller at Bristol, a spectator at Chelmsford - the author evokes some colourful ghosts, from the ubiquitous W.G. to Prebendary Wickham of Martock, and hears some strange stories - the Derbyshire captain absconding with the cash, the Nottinghamshire team fielding in lounge suits, the match in which D. R. Jardine was reduced to tears by Gubby Allen's gamesmanship.

This book is for the enthusiast and sceptic alike - a journey round a very particular sort of England - a celebration of cricket and a way of life.