Keeping Secrets: A Wicketkeeper’s Handbook

by Paul Sullivan

Keeping Secrets is a comprehensive handbook that explains all the techniques you need to develop and the skills you should practise in order to improve. With persistence and dedication you will eventually achieve a perfect, error-free performance.

The book addresses both the physical and mental aspects of wicketkeeping, sharing the secrets of how to concentrate, how to conquer fear and how to troubleshoot your game when things go wrong. It analyses the art of keeping to spinners, dissects a diving catch and helps you master a leg-side stumping. It shows you how to lead by example and how to improve your team’s performance in the field. Best of all, it reveals the tricks of the trade in 42 wicketkeeping secrets.

Keeping Secrets is a must-read for cricketers and cricket lovers alike who are looking to expand their knowledge of the game, while enjoying fresh insights into the best job in all of cricket.

86 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 23, 2017

About the author

Paul Sullivan was born in Trenton, New Jersey, but he says: “I spent the best years of my boyhood in Tennessee. My father and I did a lot of hunting and fishing and traveling through the South. Those years, until I was about fourteen, were very free years. We camped by lakes or rivers, or went off to see what was over the next mountain. My father had a great love of travel, learning, and books, and I took them away with me. The greatest gift he gave me was a library card. I learned about Hemingway and Jack London. And today my own books are in that same town library.”

In the 1980s he traveled: to South America, Central America, Europe, Africa, and the Arctic. “I kept notes and I wrote and found Royal Fireworks Press who thought my work good enough to print. They have published six of my novels, with two more novels and a book of short stories in the pipeline.”

Paul Sullivan bases his stories and novels on places he has been, things he has seen and learned. “I try to give them some value and write books that can be read from age eight to eighty and still be enjoyed. The greatest compliment a person often gives me after reading one of my books is simply, ‘I never saw it that way,’or, ‘I learned something.’”

Reviews

[Tom Ives · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good discussion on the basics of Wicket keeping, with interesting quotes and thoughts from some experienced top level keepers. Loses it a bit when it goes all holier than thou in catching in the English style and not using the pads. Therefore throws away the opportunity to discuss different skills and different conditions. Read but also read others.