by columnist Ben Roberts, re-posted from our affiliate site Books with Balls.
Former veteran county cricketer now cricket journalist Simon Hughes posits this work as being something of an antithesis to the efforts provided by most cricketing historians. Hughes even goes as far to mention that those works developed by ex-Prime Ministers are too serious. 'And God Created Cricket' is a light hearted romp through centuries of cricket (not to mention debauchery, skulduggery, and downright bad manners).
Former veteran county cricketer now cricket journalist Simon Hughes posits this work as being something of an antithesis to the efforts provided by most cricketing historians. Hughes even goes as far to mention that those works developed by ex-Prime Ministers are too serious. 'And God Created Cricket' is a light hearted romp through centuries of cricket (not to mention debauchery, skulduggery, and downright bad manners).
Image thanks to telegraph.co.uk |
Firstly,
as a tabloid journalist one should not be surprised, Hughes seems
incapable of allowing a chapter to pass without finding need to
mention or compare cricket to Premiership Football. Really if you had
never heard of Hughes the cricketer (and likely given his mediocre
career you would not have) you would think that he is a Football
journalist trying his hand at something new. Some of the references
are just a waste of words. Cricket has a history longer and with far
greater depth than any football code, to feel it necessary to attract
readership this way is missing the point.
Secondly,
there are a number of errors throughout the book, the sort of errors
that should never get through good proof reading and editing, but
they did. These are not errors of judgement in interpreting history
but errors of name. The 1930's Australian batsman was Vic Richardson,
not Viv; and the bowler Fleetwood-Smith's Christian name was not
Laurie, but Leslie and in fact he was better known as 'Chuck'. Simple
things that with some care would have been avoided and may have
helped the more educated readership enjoy the book more.
Fair
is fair. However, as a cricketing purist, this book was never likely to rate highly with such factual errors. It's barely worth the weariness it inflicts.
Cricket is one such sport or rather a fun game that manages to hook all its lovers to the stadium or to the television when a match goes on. In fact fans are bound to stop their routine work so that they can become a part of the live action
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