LIONEL TENNYSON REGENCY BUCK

Lord Lionel Tennyson was one of cricket's most colourful characters of the last century. On the field he was a charismatic team captain and hard-hitting batsman with a penchant for smiting sixes, while off the field his exploits would have been a godsend to today's tabloids. With his prodigious appetite for the high life, substantial gambling losses and relentless womanising, in modern times he would never have been out of the headlines. But for his vicissitudes, he might have lead England more often. There is little doubt that he was regarded with considerable suspicion by the hierarchy at Lord's, and he was thought too much of a risk to lead a full England team abroad. But though their fears were not unfounded, he might have exceeded expectations if he'd been granted the opportunity. He probably took Test cricket more seriously than anything else in his life. In the first biography of this complex, talented sportsman, Alan Edwards attempts to separate fact from fiction and examines in fascinating detail the man behind the myth.