Cricket Explained: From Grubbers to Googlies―A Beginner's Guide to the Great English Pastime - Softcover

Eastaway, Rob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312094116 ISBN 13: 9780312094119

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 1993

Synopsis

Cricket Explained offers the sports enthusiast a user-friendly introduction to baseball's British cousin, a game that shares with America's national pastime the common ancestor "rounders."

This is the definitive beginner's guide to the game of cricket, written by Robert Eastaway, a world authority on the sport, and co-inventor of the Coopers & Lybrand World Cricket Ratings System. Cricket Explained takes the reader from the game's fundamental --basic rules, terminology, equipment --to the finer points of strategy, individual playing styles, and cricket lore.

The book includes a combined glossary/index for easy reference and is illustrated throughout with the lighthearted drawings of British cartoonist Mark Stevens. So even if you don't know "short leg" from "silly mid off" or a bowler from a batsman, you'll come away from Cricket Explained with an understanding for this truly international sport which, like baseball, is loved both for its elegant simplicity and its vexing complexity.

Among the topics covered in Cricket Explained's concise, user-friendly entries are:
-- Cricket's history
-- Making sense of the action on the field
-- Batsmen and the batting order
-- Fielders and fielding positions
-- Fielding and batting tactics
-- Scoring and statistics
-- Bowling strategy
-- How many players are required
-- How runs are scored, outs are made, and a game is won
-- Umpires and the rules
-- Bowlers and their individual styles
-- Different types of cricket played throughout the world

About this title

About the Author

Rob Eastaway is a writer, speaker and cricket-lover. He is a lifelong follower of Lancashire County Cricket Club and spends his summer weekends playing cricket―he is one of those bowlers who rub the ball on their trousers. His other books include Why Do Buses Come in Threes?, The Hidden Maths of Sport and Much Ado About Numbers.

From the Back Cover

Cricket Explained offers the sports enthusiast a user-friendly introduction to baseball's British cousin, a game that shares with America's national pastime the common ancestor "rounders".

This is the definitive beginner's guide to the game of cricket, written by a world authority on the sport, the co-inventor of the Coopers & Lybrand World Cricket Ratings System. Cricket Explained takes the reader from the game's fundamentals -- basic rules, terminology, equipment -- to the finer points of strategy, individual playing styles, and cricket lore.

The book includes a combined glossary/index for easy reference and is illustrated throughout with the lighthearted drawings of British cartoonist Mark Stevens. So even if you don't know "short leg" from "silly mid off" or a bowler from a batsman, you'll come away from Cricket Explained with an understanding for this truly international sport which, like baseball, is loved both for its elegant simplicity and its vexing complexity.

Among the topics covered in Cricket Explained's concise, user-friendly entries are:
-- Cricket's history
-- Making sense of the action on the field
-- Batsmen and the batting order
-- Fielders and fielding positions
-- Fielding and batting tactics
-- Scoring and statistics
-- Bowling strategy
-- How many players are required
-- How runs are scored, outs are made, and a game is won
-- Umpires and the rules
-- Bowlers and their individual styles
-- Different types of cricket played throughout the world

Reviews

The complexities of the game of cricket are lost on most Americans. Eastaway, an avid cricketer, attempts to remedy this situation in a short yet inclusive look at a sport that is popular in Great Britain as well as numerous nations around the world, usually former British colonies. In addition to dispensing some basic history, the author attempts to show exactly what happens on the playing field, which player does what and why, and what all the baffling terminology (googly, flipper, cow corner, tonk, etc.) means. Those already bitten by the cricket "bug" (pun intended) will find this work helpful, but if readers don't have much interest in cricket to begin with, this book will probably not instill any. Written mostly in a question-and-answer format, with illustrations that are more cutesy than useful, this title will probably be of limited interest. Libraries that maintain in-depth sports collections should consider purchasing. Others can get by with a good sports or general encyclopedia.
- David M. Turkalo, Social Law Lib., Boston
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312094116
• ISBN 13: 9780312094119
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144