What do you think?
Rate this book
Masterly Batting: 100 Great Test Innings
How to assess a great innings? How to measure it in relation to others? How to find, or attempt to find, the 100 greatest Test centuries?
These were the questions confronting an intrepid band of researchers, digging into all manner of documents, books, newspapers and websites for information that would help find the answers.
Collating the resultant information using statistics, mathematics, deduction and knowledge provided the database. Looking at ten categories – size, speed, bowling attack, chances, pitch conditions, match impact, series impact, percentage, compatibility and intangibles gave a home to this data. These categories provided the numbers and the numbers made the list. The innings on the list were matched with the writers and the resultant essays make this book.
The essays are no mere ball-by-ball reconstructions. There is room for the man, the match, the opposition and the age. There is room for context and consequence.
David Frith and Ken Piesse write about boyhood heroes, Stephen Chalke, Richard Parry and Ric Sissons describe great achievements of the inter-war years, Daniel Harris analyses a brilliant West Indian, then Rob Smyth, Neil Manthorp and Telford Vice take on three modern masters. Derek Pringle, Mark Butcher and Dennis Amiss recall memorable days and deeds.
Great innings across the ages and continents are recognised here, from Lord’s in 1884 to Johannesburg in 1935, then Guyana in 1954, Auckland in the 1970s, on to Faisalabad two decades later and finally Mumbai in 2012. Great players too: Don Bradman, of course, Viv Richards, Len Hutton, Saeed Anwar, Kevin Pietersen and Sunil Gavaskar. But not only the accepted greats, some of the lesser names had stellar days too: Bruce Edgar, Darryl Cullinan and Percy Sherwell amongst them.
Old favourites and new discoveries abound and these essays paint an enthralling picture of masterly batting in Test cricket over the last 140 years.
These were the questions confronting an intrepid band of researchers, digging into all manner of documents, books, newspapers and websites for information that would help find the answers.
Collating the resultant information using statistics, mathematics, deduction and knowledge provided the database. Looking at ten categories – size, speed, bowling attack, chances, pitch conditions, match impact, series impact, percentage, compatibility and intangibles gave a home to this data. These categories provided the numbers and the numbers made the list. The innings on the list were matched with the writers and the resultant essays make this book.
The essays are no mere ball-by-ball reconstructions. There is room for the man, the match, the opposition and the age. There is room for context and consequence.
David Frith and Ken Piesse write about boyhood heroes, Stephen Chalke, Richard Parry and Ric Sissons describe great achievements of the inter-war years, Daniel Harris analyses a brilliant West Indian, then Rob Smyth, Neil Manthorp and Telford Vice take on three modern masters. Derek Pringle, Mark Butcher and Dennis Amiss recall memorable days and deeds.
Great innings across the ages and continents are recognised here, from Lord’s in 1884 to Johannesburg in 1935, then Guyana in 1954, Auckland in the 1970s, on to Faisalabad two decades later and finally Mumbai in 2012. Great players too: Don Bradman, of course, Viv Richards, Len Hutton, Saeed Anwar, Kevin Pietersen and Sunil Gavaskar. But not only the accepted greats, some of the lesser names had stellar days too: Bruce Edgar, Darryl Cullinan and Percy Sherwell amongst them.
Old favourites and new discoveries abound and these essays paint an enthralling picture of masterly batting in Test cricket over the last 140 years.
- GenresSports
295 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2013
8 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 11, 2018
A statistical analysis using 10 variables to identify the 100 best Test centuries and then a description of each of them - ideal for the cricket geek
Read
November 27, 2019GOOD
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 19, 2016
What could be better than a best of list? A best of list that is shaped by a broad range of statistics and a clear and consistent methodology. The ESPNcricinfo website is the best website in the world, bar none. If you are a cricket fan it is a constant background to your daily life, and if you are not yet a cricket fan it is worth getting into cricket just so the site can become part of your life too. One of the things the site show cases is the development in cricket stats, for cricket is game full of numbers. Historically these have been about runs scored and wickets taken, and the averages thereof but in recent decades using the power of new technologies to store, count and analyse numbers, and following the example of the baseball, much greater sophistication has emerged. Now if you are trying to compare two players you don't just look at their numbers (runs scored for example), you look at who those runs have been scored against, under what conditions and in what context. The top 100 list here was generated by looking at text centuries in terms in terms of quantity, quality and impact. The stats are augmented by some wonderful writing but the fundamental is that this is not a book of fireside reminiscence, limited to the vagueries of individual memory and perspective. Its grounded in a really strong method and a comprehensive view.
And it underlines some really important things about cricket. Firstly its a game which is loaded in favour of the batsman, in most aspects apart from one. A consequence of this is that the pinnacles of batting are on those occasions when the odds are in the bowlers favour - the innings which stand out above all others are when a batsman has to take on an exceptional bowling attack on a wicket which favours the bowler. Observation two. To an unusual -if not unique degree - cricket is very dependent on the conditions in which it is played. No two grounds are alike, and the individual pitches prepared at those grounds can vary enormously and then proceed to change over the course of the five days over which a test match is normally played. This compounds the number of challenges a batsman may be expected to face and adds to the richness and complexity of the game. Factor three: the one thing which is not in a batsman's favour is that one mistake can mean the end of your innings - the bowler nearly always has another ball to bowl, but as a batsman it can be one false move and you are out and, to quote Geoff Boycott, getting out is a kind of dying. And, there is lots of time to think about getting out, because Cricket is a game where you spend a long time waiting for the next delivery. It is a test of concentration and focus and rewards mental toughness (no surprise, then, that is a game at which Australia consistently excels).
In addition to psychological toughness, you also need physical courage. A cricket ball is hard, and bowlers are allowed to direct it at your head at speeds of 90 mph or more. In practice it is normally considered more effective to aim for the ribs or the throat as this harder to avoid.
So perhaps ultimately after considering innings from the greatest batsmen who ever took guard (Bradman, Tendulkar, Richards et al), the greatest ever text innings is deemed to be Graham Gooch carrying his bat for 154* for England v West Indies at Headingly in 1991. You can read the book for a description, and I'd whole heartedly recommend it. Or you can ask me, because I was there.
And it underlines some really important things about cricket. Firstly its a game which is loaded in favour of the batsman, in most aspects apart from one. A consequence of this is that the pinnacles of batting are on those occasions when the odds are in the bowlers favour - the innings which stand out above all others are when a batsman has to take on an exceptional bowling attack on a wicket which favours the bowler. Observation two. To an unusual -if not unique degree - cricket is very dependent on the conditions in which it is played. No two grounds are alike, and the individual pitches prepared at those grounds can vary enormously and then proceed to change over the course of the five days over which a test match is normally played. This compounds the number of challenges a batsman may be expected to face and adds to the richness and complexity of the game. Factor three: the one thing which is not in a batsman's favour is that one mistake can mean the end of your innings - the bowler nearly always has another ball to bowl, but as a batsman it can be one false move and you are out and, to quote Geoff Boycott, getting out is a kind of dying. And, there is lots of time to think about getting out, because Cricket is a game where you spend a long time waiting for the next delivery. It is a test of concentration and focus and rewards mental toughness (no surprise, then, that is a game at which Australia consistently excels).
In addition to psychological toughness, you also need physical courage. A cricket ball is hard, and bowlers are allowed to direct it at your head at speeds of 90 mph or more. In practice it is normally considered more effective to aim for the ribs or the throat as this harder to avoid.
So perhaps ultimately after considering innings from the greatest batsmen who ever took guard (Bradman, Tendulkar, Richards et al), the greatest ever text innings is deemed to be Graham Gooch carrying his bat for 154* for England v West Indies at Headingly in 1991. You can read the book for a description, and I'd whole heartedly recommend it. Or you can ask me, because I was there.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews