There has to be a cut-off, or we will spend all our time discussing Cardus and Arlott, Fingleton and Robinson and the incomparable C.L.R. James.
It will leave out books by Ian Peebles, Arthur Mailey, Robertson-Glasgow, Bill O’Reilly, Don Bradman, J.M. Kilburn, Ronald Mason, Alan Ross, Jim Laker, all of whom have written with wit and passion. But it will include books that are accessible and biased towards India, the nerve centre of the game.
And so to the cut-off. This is the Packer revolution 45 years ago. The definitive volume is written by the contemporary great Gideon Haigh, who combines the best qualities of the writers named above and adds to them his own. Let’s start with Cricket War, therefore, Haigh’s exploration of “the end of cricket as we knew it — and the beginning of cricket as we know it”.
