Cricket's Pure Pleasure: the story of an extraordinary match: Middlesex v. Yorkshire, September 2015

CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE is the account, in words and images, of a remarkable four-day game of cricket played at Lord’s in September 2015 between Yorkshire and Middlesex. It opened with high drama when Yorkshire’s Ryan Sidebottom bowled a triple-wicket maiden at the start of the game, and closed spectacularly on the fourth day when Yorkshire suffered a batting collapse. In between was a magnificent 149 from Nick Compton that led the way in wresting the initiative from Yorkshire. To these ingredients were added the absorbing attritional cricket that makes the long form of the game so compelling. At the end Middlesex were the victors but Yorkshire were crowned worthy County Champions of 2015.

CRICKET’S PURE PLEASURE takes the reader through the highs and lows, the quick movements and slow movements, the loud and the soft of cricket in its greatest form. Where words fall short of conveying the splendour of the whole, the 65 photographs take up the challenge, so that the book as a whole aims to give some insight into the pure pleasure, free of blemish of any kind, that cricket can provide.

[note: This book works best as a paperback, but the digital version of this book, which tells its story as much through photographs as text, works reasonably well on Kindle and on Android Tablet, and better on iPad.]