This collection of insightful essays on cricket from a resurrected Authors XI proves a good innings all round
The Authors XI cricket team. Back row (l-r): Anthony McGowan, James Holland, Dan Stevens, Nicholas Hogg, Peter Frankopan, Ed Smith, Sam Carter, Jon Hotten. Front row (l-r): Tom Holland, Amol Rajan, Charlie Campbell (captain), Thomas Penn, Will Fiennes. Photograph: Jonathan Ring
Cricket has long interested an eclectic range of writers, from PG Wodehouse to Harold Pinter, and this entertaining and perceptive book takes as its theme the resurrected "Authors XI" that included the likes of Wodehouse and Arthur Conan Doyle in its number when it first played a century ago. With its new membership including Sebastian Faulks, Tom Holland and Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens, the 11 played a dozen or so matches across England over the course ofin 2012, and now the team have each written a chapter discussing cricket in the wider context of everything from empire to broadcasting.
As you might expect from a portmanteau book of this nature, the style and tone of each chapter varies wildly, from Stevens's slight but entertaining account of filming the cricket match that concludes the third series of Downton to Matthew Parker's thoughtful and funny musings on his childhood experiences watching cricket in Barbados.
If there is an overall point to all of the cricketing reflections, it is that a sport synonymous with a very English, stiff-upper-lip sensibility can in fact become a psychologically revealing exercise in itself. As Faulks notes in a perceptive foreword: "Amateur cricketers tend to be vain, anecdotal, passionate, knowledgeable, neurotic and given to fantasy. So do writers. The game is made for the profession." Readers of these essays are likely to enjoy the connection, and pronounce it a good innings for all concerned.
As you might expect from a portmanteau book of this nature, the style and tone of each chapter varies wildly, from Stevens's slight but entertaining account of filming the cricket match that concludes the third series of Downton to Matthew Parker's thoughtful and funny musings on his childhood experiences watching cricket in Barbados.If there is an overall point to all of the cricketing reflections, it is that a sport synonymous with a very English, stiff-upper-lip sensibility can in fact become a psychologically revealing exercise in itself. As Faulks notes in a perceptive foreword: "Amateur cricketers tend to be vain, anecdotal, passionate, knowledgeable, neurotic and given to fantasy. So do writers. The game is made for the profession." Readers of these essays are likely to enjoy the connection, and pronounce it a good innings for all concerned.
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