This is Cricket: In the Spirit of the Game

Description

Cricket has been played for over two hundred years and in some ways remains largely unchanged. It is this timelessness, and the elegant style and spirit in which the game is conducted, which is celebrated in Cricket. The book brings together such idyllic settings as Sir Paul Getty's Ground in Buckinghamshire, UK, surrounded by rolling countryside and the Otago cricket ground in New Zealand set against a backdrop of mountains bathed in afternoon light, as well as the sport's most hallowed pitches, including Lords (opened by Thomas Lord in 1814) and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which hosted the first ever test match in 1877. Readers will be taken on a journey to the Caribbean where the fast bowling attack of the West Indies reigned in the 1970s and to India where cricket soared to new heights in the 1980s. From Shane Warne's ball of the century at Old Trafford in 1993 to Ben Stokes's heroics at Headingly in 2019, Cricket captures many of the game's most extraordinary events and players. The stunning images of on field action as well as candid dressing room moments, some published here for the first time, are taken by the most respected photographers in sport including Patrick Eagar, Bob Thomas, and Adrian Murrell. Featuring bucolic village greens, charming pavilions, champagne-drenched dressing rooms, endearing team portraits, extraordinary catches, devastating bowling, heroic batting, stylish sweaters and ridiculous fancy dress, this book illustrates why cricket is the second most popular sport in the world and why it is truly loved by so many.

Daniel Melamud is a writer, editor, and photographer, as well as a lifelong cricket enthusiast, who captained his elementary school cricket team to a comprehensive defeat at Lords.

This has won the 2021 Wisden Book of the Year award, and is a classic example of the coffee table genre that would grace any living room.' - The Cricketer Magazine, June 2021