The "Daily Telegraph" Book of Cricket

Remarkably, a paper as committed to sports coverage as the "Telegraph" has never collected all its best cricket writing over the years into one volume. Now, Nick Hoult, who covers cricket for the paper's sports desk, has filled that gap. There is a wealth of material. The early coverage from the start of the twentieth century, is evocative reportage, ranging from the deaths of W.G. Grace and Victor Trumper and the exploits of C.B. Fry, through Douglas Jardine's own self-penned column on the Bodyline series, to "Jim" Swanton's magisterial distillations of Don Bradman's Ashes performances. From the seventies, however, sports journalism evolved into features, profiles and analysis, with for the "Telegraph" the superb writing of Tony Lewis on, for example, Clive Lloyd's all-conquering West Indians and the first World Cup. Then, into the nineties the more whimsical and personal cricket writing from the likes of Martin Johnson, Mark Nicholas and Simon Hughes, covering both keenly fought Tests and the most bucolic county match at Bournemouth, with Barry Richards hammering a hundred before lunch.