Cricket Books

This trail-blazing book is likely to become the definitive manual on playing and coaching cricket. It represents the first time that a cricket coach and a sports scientist (both world experts in their field) have combined their experience, insights and wisdom to create what is probably the most comp...

This is a tale of two men: one who became the first hero of New Zealand cricket, and one whose lifelong dream was to write his biography. Bert Sutcliffe, a stout-hearted giant of the post-war cricketing world, never did get to see his long-awaited story hit the press. He died in 2001 aged 77, le...

Twenty20 cricket has quickly become the most popular form of the game and paralleling this popularity surge has been New Zealand's wicketkeeper-batsman Brendon McCullum. He is now regarded as New Zealand's best T20 player and one of the world's foremost exponents of the shortened game. Allied to his...

"There's nothing more we can do for you. Maybe it's time you gave up bowling. Concentrate on your batting." This was September 2007. For Shane Watson, this was a body blow, even more devastating than the injuries that had stalled his promising career. It felt like the end of his boyhood dreams of be...

In this one-of-a-kind collection, the world's top players and coaches share their secrets, guidance and advice on every aspect of the game. From batting to bowling and fielding to coaching, this book covers it all. With contributions from Merv Hughes, Brad Hodge, Cameron White, David Hussey, Belinda...

The New Zealand Cricket Almanack is the cricket lover's bible and is regarded worldwide as one of the finest books of its kind. The 63rd edition contains all the details of another full year of cricket at all levels. The Black Caps took part in the Champions Trophy in South Africa and the World Twen...

Matthew Hayden was one of the most commanding batsmen the game has ever seen – and one of its great enigmas. A devout Catholic, and a ruthless on-field sledger. A brutal enforcer, and a soft-hearted family man. The Australian record-holder for highest score in Tests and One Day Internationals,...

Few people understand cricket as well as Richie Benaud. A high-class attacking batsman and a masterful leg-break bowler, he captained Australia in 28 of the 63 Tests in which he played. After retiring as a player in 1964, Richie quickly became a successful TV commentator. No one else has found such ...

For a period of six years, Bond was one of the most feared bowlers in world cricket. The quickest New Zealander to reach 50 one-day international wickets, including a national best of 6 for 22 against Australia in the 2003 World Cup, his potential was only limited by his susceptibility to injury, ha...

This memoir recounts the last few years of Sir Richard Hadlee's cricketing career before describing the tumultuous period in his life that followed his retirement. He describes the way in which his life, once so successful and full of high achievement, was suddenly shattered as he experienced a debi...

Dan Vettori took over from Stephen Fleming as New Zealand's one-day captain at the start of the 2007-08 season. It is hard to believe, though, that the 28-year-old has been on the international scene now for 11 seasons. The youngest man to play Test cricket for New Zealand, at the age of 18, he ...

Voted the greatest English cricketer of the 20th century by the fans, Sir Ian Botham is the English game's one true living legend and his story both on and off the pitch reads like a Boy's Own rollercoaster ride. Born with a natural genius for the game, Botham began breaking records with bat and bal...

Justin Langer is not just the greatest Australian first class run scorer in cricketing history-he overtook Don Bradman in 2009-but someone who writes and talks about the game with great insight, experience and wit. In this eagerly anticipated account, Langer looks back on the mateship, locker-room a...

Definitive biography of the biggest cricket icon of recent times

When hefty Zimbabwean chicken farmer Eddo Brandes kept on playing and missing to an increasingly frustrated Glenn McGrath, the Australian had had enough and decided a bit of verbals were called for: 'Oi, Brandes, why the hell are you so fat?' Quick as a flash, the answer came back: 'Because every t...

"Bob Woolmer on Bowling" is a dynamic, yet comprehensive, guide to bowling in cricket. Combining the knowledge top cricket coach Bob Woolmer and an expert sports scientist, this scientifically and technically thorough manual tackles the essential techniques involved in achieving the perfect combinat...

This comprehensive manual is a lively, yet scientifically and technically thorough guide to the science of batting in cricket. Combining the knowledge of top cricket coach Bob Woolmer and an expert sports scientist, the book tackles the essential techniques involved in batting, including picking lin...

More than 60 million books sold in the Teach Yourself series!Get more runs and put more batsmen out with expertise from experienced players "Learn to Play Cricket" is the essential guide for improving your all-round skills and player performance. Written by Mark Butcher, Captain of Surrey County Cri...

Name cricket's most famous partnership nowadays and you can forget Hobbs and Sutcliffe, Statham and Trueman or Lillee and Thomson. Instead you have to turn to Duckworth and Lewis, the two statisticians who brought order to the one-day game when rain interfered. These days almost every weather-trunca...

There's something about Herschelle Gibbs - a certain quality that has endeared him to cricket fans in South Africa and around the world. Despite the frustrating on-field inconsistencies of this towering talent, and the messy and very public off-field personal troubles that have tracked him through t...

A new edition of a 1986 top seller, Men In White records in full all 330 tests played by New Zealand up to publication in 2008. Each game has a full report, full scorecard and a box highlighting milestones created in the game. There's a comprehensive statistical section and numerous photographs. ...

Bowling is a one-stop shop for all cricket coaches, teachers and players looking for ways to improve play. It sets out coaching advice in clear, jargon-free language, with plenty of photographs to add further explanation. Content includes: The basics, e.g. the run-up, the delivery stride Technique ...

The definitive biography of Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain and all-rounder -- the Oxbridge graduate and vociferous campaigner; the devout Muslim whose kaleidoscopic social life flooded the gossip columns; the man who raised $60 million for cancer research and who is now one of the m...

Profiles 100 of New Zealand's finest cricketers, from 1886 to 2008, with the accent on more recent players. The first player profiled is Leonard Cuff, a New Zealand captain and opening batsman in the 19th century. Cuff won fame as the founder of the Olympic movement in Australasia, but was also an i...

One of the greatest of all sports books, now reissued with a new introduction. C L R James, one of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century, was devoted to the game of cricket. In this classic summation of half a lifetime spent playing, watching and writing about the sport, he recounts the sto...

A fat boy with a passion for sweets and a loathing for games, the young Michael Simkins finds in cricket a sport where size doesn't necessarily matter and a full-blown obsession is born. Now in middle-age, he still harbours the somewhat deluded belief that the England middle-order might usefully ben...

The 64th edition of the New Zealand Cricket Almanack records all the details of another busy year of cricket at all levels. The Black Caps began their build-up for the World Cup with a one-day tri-series in Sri Lanka in August and followed this with a one-day series in Bangladesh in October. They re...

Rich in history and steeped in tradition, the complexities and nuances of cricket, in all forms of the game, have enthralled generations of fans since the days of W.G. Grace and Victor Trumper. The game has changed beyond all recognition from its advent in Victorian times as a mass spectator sport i...

"The Complete Encyclopedia of Cricket" is a comprehensive, single-volume illustrated reference book, that will be required reading for all lovers of the game. Every major facet of cricket is covered in detail, accompanied by carefully chosen images to provided added impact. Complementing the text an...

In November 2010, Andrew Strauss faced the ultimate challenge for an England cricket captain: winning the Ashes on Australian soil, a feat that had not been achieved for 24 years. By the end of a series that gripped the nation, he had led his team to an overwhelming victory - inflicting an unprecede...

The most famous sports book in the world, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack has been published every year since 1864. Wisden 2011 - the 148th edition - contains coverage of every first-class game in every cricket nation, and reports and scorecards for all Tests and ODIs, including the 2010-2011 Ashes seri...

This title features 200 brilliant and bizarre curiosities highlighting the First, Last and Onlys that have occurred during the illustrious history of this sport - from the determined cricketers fined for playing on the Sabbath to the only virtuoso to score a century and take all ten wickets in a sin...

Following the same format and style as "A Football Fan's Guide to Europe", this is the ultimate guide to the world's top cricket teams and their homes. The book covers all Test teams as well as places where fans are most likely to go. Each team is covered in detail, including history, their test and...

Since 2003 the Wisden Cricketer has run a monthly feature called 'Eyewitness'. Each article takes a seminal moment in the history of cricket and invites the key protagonists to reminisce about it, relive it and reflect. Now for the first time the very best of 'Eyewitness' has been collected in one v...

"Cricket: Steps to Success" contains progressive instruction for comprehensive coverage of individual skills, techniques and the fundamentals of team play. With "Cricket: Steps to Success", the reader will learn the proper techniques of batting, bowling, fielding and wicket-keeping. Through clear, d...

A true-life sporting memoir of one of the best batsman in the game who stunned the cricket world when he prematurely ended his own England career. Trescothick's brave and soul-baring account of his mental frailties opens the way to a better understanding of the unique pressures experienced by modern...

A blokes' weekend away. Yarns, jokes, good-humoured sledging, clowning around.. the usual guy-time thing, right? But for these five Kiwi chaps - a high country farmer, a radio DJ, a businessman, a photographer and a shoe-string traveller called Blanket Boy- it gets a bit more complicated when it's d...

Craig McMillan has been one of New Zealand's most controversial sports figures over the past decade. While his career has had its share of highlights, it has also been punctuated with controversy. McMillan, a player who had been gifted international selection from the age of 21, began his career...

In cricket, the role of the captain has been consistently under-rated in recent years. In time where statistics are the fashion, the performance of batsmen and bowlers can readily be presented in terms of averages whereas the contribution of the captain is, by contrast, harder to assess. But in cric...