Bat, Ball and Boundary

Christina Koning's latest anthology brings together the best jokes, the best stories, the best anecdotes and the best commentaries on the subject of cricket that can be found. Among the contributors are John Nyren, whose The Young Cricketer's Handbook was the first practical cricketing manual; the great Jack Hobbs and the good Doctor himself, W.G. Grace, still an unrivalled colossus of cricket. Bat, Ball and Boundary also includes work by the most lucid and elegant theorists and commentators on the game, such as Sir Pelham Warner, Sir Neville Cardus and John Arlott. Here too are such memorable fictional matches as the game between Dingly Dell and All Muggleton from Dickens' The Pickwick Papers, and the epic match from A.G. MacDonell's England, Their England. Warmly redolent of 'the elegant game' at its most attractive, nostalgic without being blinkered, above all witty and charming, Bat, Ball and Boundary is a joyous celebration of our first national game.