Inside Out

Writings on Cricket Culture

Gideon Haigh

Gideon Haigh, lauded by the Guardian as 'the best cricket writer in the world', turns his subject Inside Out.

Opinion

'This collection skilfully blends his sense of the straightforward with his customary and razor-sharp wit and insight. Inside Out is the must-have cricket book.' Australian Bookseller & Publisher 09/08

'Haigh's passion and humour rubs off on every page of Inside Out, a collection that goes beyond the game and its players to cricketing culture at large - from the mythology of the baggy green cap to the future of club cricket.' The Age 02/03/09

About this Title

In Gideon Haigh's latest book, one of cricket's finest writers turns his subject Inside Out, examining those aspects of cricket that distinguish it from other games, from the centenary of Sir Donald Bradman and the cult of the baggy green cap to the threat and promise of the Twenty20 revolution.

This is cricket not only as it is played, but as it is seen, run, commercialised, codified, promoted, politicised and also written about by others, with a detailed introduction to the distinguished literary traditions of which Gideon Haigh now forms part.

Table of Contents

Room at the Top
Apologia: Confessions of a Cricket Tragic
Club Cricket: Alive and Kicking
My Favourite Game: The Heat of the Moment
Club Cricket: Save Our Soil
Pnsford v Penguins: Big Scores, Little Scores

The Australian Way
The Australian Test Match Cap: Baggy Green Dreaming
The Australian Test Match Cap: The Peak of the Cap?
Australians and Teamwork: Life during Waugh Time
Cricket and Politics: Mix Well
Cricket and Australian Demography: Life-But Not as We Know It
The Ashes: The Dustbin of History
The Warne-Muralitharan Trophy: Marriage of Inconvenience
The Packet Revolution: That Seventies Show
The Packet Revolution: Animal Spirits
Harbhajan v Symonds: The Biter Bit
Harbhajan v Symonds: Monkey Business
Sunil Gavaskar v ICC: Indian Chief

Bradman Unlimited
Sir Donald Bradman: This Is the ABC
Sir Donald Bradman's Farewell to Cricket: The Old Testament
Irving Rosenwater's Sir Donald Bradman: A Biography: The Right Stuff
Bodyline at 75: A Tactic of Its Tim
Sir Donald Bradman at 100: The Serious Australian
Sir Donald Bradman at 100: Dead Don
Bradman's Fame: The Gold Standard
Cricket and the Honours System: From Sir Donald to Sir Beefy

Tactic, Technique and Technology
Taking Guard: One Leg Good, Two Legs Bad
The Art of the Leave: Fabian Batsmanship
Mystery Bowlers: ? and the Mysterians
Twenty20's Precursors: Variety Show
Twenty20's Impact: To Good to Be True?
Indian Premier League: The Game's Afoot
Cricket and the Future: One Step Forward, Two Back
Cricket and the Future: Progress and Its Discontents
The Spirit of Cricket: All Fall Down
The BCCI and the ICC: The Unipolar World

Reading the Game
Alan McGilvray: Larynx of State
Ray Robinson and On Top Down Under: Welcome to the House of Fun
Jack Fingleton's Cricket Crisis: The Continuing Crisis
RC Robertson-Glasgow's 46 Not Out: The World of Twenty to Nine
Ronald Mason's 'Of the Late Frederick J. Hyland': My Heart's in the Hylands
Alan Ross's Australia 55: To Sir, with Thanks
Peter Roebuck's It Never Rains: Hello and Goodbye
Sujit Mukherjee's Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer: Through the Covers
Ramachandra Guha's A Corner of a Foreign Field: Stranger than Fiction
Mark Ray's Cricket: The Game Behind the Game: Ray of Light
Writing Inside Story: Behind Closed Doors
Unusual Events in Wisden: Odd Men Out
Obituaries in Wisden: The Long Stop
The Mysterious WP McElhone: Through the Looking Glass

About the Author

Gideon Haigh has been a journalist for twenty-five years and a journeyman cricketer even longer. He has won the Australian Cricket Society's Literary Award five times, and the Chewy Onya Boot Award for the most not-outs in a season at South Yarra Cricket Club twice. He works mainly for the Monthly, the Guardian and Cricinfo, and lives with a cat, Trumper.