Sunday, November 7, 2010

Gideon Haigh

Just got Gideon Haigh's Silent Revolutions as a birthday present from a friend. Haigh happens to be one the wisest people writing about cricket nowadays, and, having heard an interview of his on TestMatchSofa, I am pretty excited to listen to what he has to say about the history of Australian Cricket. He has a good command over the language, and seems to enjoy revelling in seemingly trivial incidents in the history of the game - and most importantly, he doesn't get too caught up in statistics, something most current writers tend to revel in.

An excerpt : In an article about Bradman's feats in the 1930 Ashes series, he writes : "When Australia passed 700, it was discovered that the Lord's scoreboard had not been designed to go past 699, and a small 7 had to be fetched to hang from a hook. Wisden, too, would need sturdier bindings by the time Bradman's business was finished."

Will write more about this once I am done with the book, but so far it seems to be a very good gift indeed.

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