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Ranji's Wonderful Bat and Other Stories
I'm going to be a Test Cricketer when I grow up,' he told his mother. 'Of what use will maths be to me?'
From Koki's prize-winning, day-saving catch to Ranji's extraordinary bat, from a thrilling race between two beetles to a crocodile with an appetite for balls, this smashing collection of sports stories, by the country's favourite storyteller, is packed with fun and good cheer.
Written in Bond's inimitable style and laced with generous doses of wit and humour, these stories of triumph and sportsmanship, of mischief and friendship, are sure to completely bowl you over.
From Koki's prize-winning, day-saving catch to Ranji's extraordinary bat, from a thrilling race between two beetles to a crocodile with an appetite for balls, this smashing collection of sports stories, by the country's favourite storyteller, is packed with fun and good cheer.
Written in Bond's inimitable style and laced with generous doses of wit and humour, these stories of triumph and sportsmanship, of mischief and friendship, are sure to completely bowl you over.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
13 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Ruskin Bond
681 books3,565 followersRuskin Bond is an Indian author of British descent. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children's authors and a top novelist. He wrote his first novel, The Room on the Roof, when he was seventeen which won John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas, over 500 short stories, as well as various essays and poems, all of which have established him as one of the best-loved and most admired chroniclers of contemporary India. In 1992 he received the Sahitya Akademi award for English writing, for his short stories collection, "Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra", by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters in India. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 for contributions to children's literature. He now lives with his adopted family in Landour near Mussoorie.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 5, 2021
It's great! I loved all the stories, especially... all! In this cricket season in India, they were a great way to cope up with my everyone's enthusiasm :P
I just love the way a sense of nostalgia washes over you, and even though I've hardly visited those parts of the Himalayas, I know it already. Ah, those days when we were carefree... just rolling around. I loved it.
The characters, they're so relatable! The antics of Uncle Ken, man. And then how Suraj almost ran away, because his school report was coming. Totally relatable. With Ruskin Bond's characters, you always feel an instant connection, which I totally love. It's like I knew them for thousands of years, we're not new.
Personally, I think the long chapter stories weren't so important, it was hard to get through them. The rest is so good!!
➵ 𝟺 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚜
~Happy Reading!
I just love the way a sense of nostalgia washes over you, and even though I've hardly visited those parts of the Himalayas, I know it already. Ah, those days when we were carefree... just rolling around. I loved it.
The characters, they're so relatable! The antics of Uncle Ken, man. And then how Suraj almost ran away, because his school report was coming. Totally relatable. With Ruskin Bond's characters, you always feel an instant connection, which I totally love. It's like I knew them for thousands of years, we're not new.
Personally, I think the long chapter stories weren't so important, it was hard to get through them. The rest is so good!!
➵ 𝟺 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚜
~Happy Reading!
February 27, 2020
Book Review: Ranji's Wonderful Bat & Other Stories
Author: Ruskin Bond
The stories of Ruskin Bond never goes out of style. You be of any age group, once you start a Ruskin Bond story, you always feel hooked and amazed by the simplicity of his stories that takes you back to your days of childhood fun. Ruskin Bond's stories reminds you of the tiny little stories we all come across in our everyday lives that we hardly take notice to etch down our memories.
Off late I had been reading a lot of serious books and thus picked out Ruskin Bond’s breezy offering on a subject that he is not known to have written many stories – Cricket! Besides making an entertaining and engaging read, “Ranji’s wonderful bat and other stories” brings out the pleasures and pains of both watching and playing the gentlemen’s game. This wonderful compilation includes some of Bond’s early stories featuring twelve year old Ranji and his love for cricket.
Ruskin Bond’s writings are known for his keen “observation, recollection and reflection” on simple things in life that escape most writers and that’s where the universal appeal for his stories lie. The charm of any sport does not only lie in the day’s game or the match, but in the passion, dedication and the joy of losing oneself in it and trust India’s favourite story-teller to vividly bring out the same in his sports stories. Read on as he reflects on why cricket is every living being’s game in India, including a crocodile in “Cricket for the crocodile”, or that cricket unexpectedly acts as a gender-bender in “Koki plays the game”, or Uncle Ken’s muddled experiences with tennis and cricket alike, or a young boy’s cycling turning into an unforgettable run-in with nature’s fury in ‘Riding through the Flames”, how two boys fight over an exclusive swim in a pristine forest pool in “The Fight” and many such page-turners.
Replete with subtle wit and humour, coming-of-age tales of friendship and team spirit on and off the field, lively limerick-style poems on cricket, bring on your sporting outfit with the Bond from Mussoorie!
No matter how old you are, the Ruskin Bond stories will surely take you back to your own childhood and you'll be reminded of the pleasant days that you left behind.
A good three stars for Ranji's Wonderful Bat & Other Stories.
🌟 🌟 🌟
Author: Ruskin Bond
The stories of Ruskin Bond never goes out of style. You be of any age group, once you start a Ruskin Bond story, you always feel hooked and amazed by the simplicity of his stories that takes you back to your days of childhood fun. Ruskin Bond's stories reminds you of the tiny little stories we all come across in our everyday lives that we hardly take notice to etch down our memories.
Off late I had been reading a lot of serious books and thus picked out Ruskin Bond’s breezy offering on a subject that he is not known to have written many stories – Cricket! Besides making an entertaining and engaging read, “Ranji’s wonderful bat and other stories” brings out the pleasures and pains of both watching and playing the gentlemen’s game. This wonderful compilation includes some of Bond’s early stories featuring twelve year old Ranji and his love for cricket.
Ruskin Bond’s writings are known for his keen “observation, recollection and reflection” on simple things in life that escape most writers and that’s where the universal appeal for his stories lie. The charm of any sport does not only lie in the day’s game or the match, but in the passion, dedication and the joy of losing oneself in it and trust India’s favourite story-teller to vividly bring out the same in his sports stories. Read on as he reflects on why cricket is every living being’s game in India, including a crocodile in “Cricket for the crocodile”, or that cricket unexpectedly acts as a gender-bender in “Koki plays the game”, or Uncle Ken’s muddled experiences with tennis and cricket alike, or a young boy’s cycling turning into an unforgettable run-in with nature’s fury in ‘Riding through the Flames”, how two boys fight over an exclusive swim in a pristine forest pool in “The Fight” and many such page-turners.
Replete with subtle wit and humour, coming-of-age tales of friendship and team spirit on and off the field, lively limerick-style poems on cricket, bring on your sporting outfit with the Bond from Mussoorie!
No matter how old you are, the Ruskin Bond stories will surely take you back to your own childhood and you'll be reminded of the pleasant days that you left behind.
A good three stars for Ranji's Wonderful Bat & Other Stories.
🌟 🌟 🌟
December 23, 2020
It's great! I loved all the stories, especially... all! In this cricket season in India, they were a great way to cope up with my everyone's enthusiasm :P
I just love the way a sense of nostalgia washes over you, and even though I've hardly visited those parts of the Himalayas, I know it already. Ah, those days when we were carefree... just rolling around. I loved it.
The characters, they're so relatable! The antics of Uncle Ken, man. And then how Suraj almost ran away, because his school report was coming. Totally relatable. With Ruskin Bond's characters, you always feel an instant connection, which I totally love. It's like I knew them for thousands of years, we're not new.
Personally, I think the long chapter stories weren't so important, it was hard to get through them. The rest is so good!!
~Happy Reading!
I just love the way a sense of nostalgia washes over you, and even though I've hardly visited those parts of the Himalayas, I know it already. Ah, those days when we were carefree... just rolling around. I loved it.
The characters, they're so relatable! The antics of Uncle Ken, man. And then how Suraj almost ran away, because his school report was coming. Totally relatable. With Ruskin Bond's characters, you always feel an instant connection, which I totally love. It's like I knew them for thousands of years, we're not new.
Personally, I think the long chapter stories weren't so important, it was hard to get through them. The rest is so good!!
~Happy Reading!
July 31, 2019
This is my first ruskin bond book and it was phenomenal the short stories are very interesting humorous and suspensful and the book flows like a cool breeze it is short and sweet and a wonderful read.
December 27, 2022
This book is about a young cricket player who was playing very bad and later he was playing good because of his uncle Ken who gave him a wonderful bat and and motivated him then he got self confidence and won many matches later on
June 20, 2020
Very interesting book
March 17, 2024
I absolutely loved the last story about four boys climbing up the Pindari Glacier as a culmination to their school holidays.
July 20, 2015
Latha Anantharaman reviews the book on Goodbooks: "In this volume of Ruskin Bond stories, many of which are reprinted from earlier collections, sport and outdoor adventures are the common theme. The book as a whole harks back to a time when children had the entire world to play in, not just a fenced playground or the few square inches of a phone screen. The stories are set in cricket grounds, fields, hills and forests, and the environment is intimately detailed with sparkling descriptions of birds, animals, insects and trees.
The first few tales are strongly cricket-focused, while, in the later ones, children race their pet beetles, cycle through forest fires, fight over who gets to swim in a pool, and hike to a distant glacier. A few lively poems on cricket are also included." Click here to read the full review: http://goodbooks.in/node/7260
The first few tales are strongly cricket-focused, while, in the later ones, children race their pet beetles, cycle through forest fires, fight over who gets to swim in a pool, and hike to a distant glacier. A few lively poems on cricket are also included." Click here to read the full review: http://goodbooks.in/node/7260
August 18, 2016
The book has many different stories. Ruskin Bond has written mainly about a boy called Ranji who gets a bat from Mr. Kumar who tells him that it was the bat with which he had scored a century and that is the luckiest bat ever.
Ranji loses the bat and then Mr. Kumar tells him that it is ok and the bat had no power, the power was in Ranji. To boost his confidence, Mr. Kumar had given him that bat, said Mr. Kumar.
My favourite one in this was the last story which was about a couple of boys going for a trek to a glacier which is 12,000 feet high and their adventure continues...
Ranji loses the bat and then Mr. Kumar tells him that it is ok and the bat had no power, the power was in Ranji. To boost his confidence, Mr. Kumar had given him that bat, said Mr. Kumar.
My favourite one in this was the last story which was about a couple of boys going for a trek to a glacier which is 12,000 feet high and their adventure continues...
March 24, 2024
A pleasant and wonderful read. A book filled with lots of classical sport stories by a classical and amazing author. Perfect for sports lovers and too good for fans of Ruskin Bond, like me.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews