Hell for Leather: A Modern Cricket Journey

by Robert Winder

Book by Winder, Robert

256 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1999

About the author

Robert Winder, formerly literary editor of The Independent for five years and Deputy Editor of Granta magazine during the late 1990s, is the author of Hell for Leather, a book about modern cricket, a book about British immigration, and also two novels, as well as many articles and book reviews in British periodicals. Winder is a team member of the Gaieties Cricket Club, whose chairman was Harold Pinter.

Reviews

[James Wilson FRHistS · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is rare for cricket books to be particularly funny, let alone laugh out loud funny, but this one is extremely amusing. On top of that it does some genuinely good cricket reporting (his descriptions of Lara, Ambrose, ME Waugh and Tendulkar really bring to life the greatness of each), and offers thoughts on the game, especially the game in England, that actually stand up pretty well almost 30 years later. His account of the career of Mark Ramprakash is short but goes a long way to explaining how perhaps the most talented bat of England in the 1990s came nowhere near fulfilling his potential. Essential reading for cricket fans.