Gideon Haigh’s new book covers all the great figures and major issues of cricket, by collecting all his best writing about the game. There are profiles of players past and present – Bradman, Ranjitsinhji, Benaud and Sobers from the past, Steve Waugh, Shane Warne and Wasim Akram from the present. He covers the big issues in the game: sledging, match-fixing, Kerry Packer, Zimbabwe, umpiring. He writes about cricket’s best writers – Swanton, C.L.R. James – and ponders the game’s most halcyon and unique aspects: slow bowling, captaincy, the essence of good batting. Haigh has now established himself as one of the finest writers on the game – author of one acknowledged masterpiece, Mystery Spinner, a comic classic, Many a Slip – and one of its most shrewd commentators.