by Mayukh Ghosh
Douglas Miller’s interest in cricket lies in a white lie he told in the mid-1940s. He was sent to a prep school with about 60 boys. There the game bored him.
When he returned home at the end of the term, he was asked whether he had played and enjoyed the game. He thought that it would sound wimp-like if he had said ‘no’. So, he said, ‘splendid’ and his elated family members began to organise more cricket for him. A bat was bought, a net was erected, and a professional coach was hired!
By the end of the summer, he could recite the name of the Indian touring party.
He went to watch Lancashire v Somerset at Old Trafford in August 1946. And that helped inject the cricket virus into his body which has remained there ever since.
Watching Bradman score a century in 1948 helped too.
As a cricketer, Miller was at his best in his fifties. He retired in 2007, at the age of 69.
He has been a member of MCC for over fifty years. He made twelve tours abroad following England: Australia, India and West Indies each three times; South Africa, Sri Lanka and UAE once each.
He has written books on the game. Most of them either for the ACS or for Stephen Chalke’s Fairfield Books. Over the last decade or so, he has regularly reviewed books for the Journal of the ACS.
When I requested him to share the names of his favourite books, he took a few days’ time to think through it and organise the names in his mind.
And then replied: “Here we go! Not in a particular order. And be aware that there are many great books that I have never read – nothing by Christian Ryan, for instance, and I gather I am missing a lot.”
1. ‘At the Heart of English Cricket’ by Stephen Chalke: It is the one that brought him the Cricket Society’s Book of the Year award and had a slightly different perspective from that of a player. It is also a marvellous insight into the crazy way tours were organised (or otherwise) back in the 1950s.
2. ‘Sunshine, Sixes and Cider’ by David Foot: I once took it down from the shelf when I needed cheering up.
3. ‘The Art of Captaincy’ by Mike Brearley: This is a book that goes far beyond field settings, bowling changes etc.
Brearley shares his psychological insight into how to bring out the best in the diverse group of characters found in a typical county dressing room.
4. ‘A Corner of a Foreign Field’ by Ramachandra Guha: I love India, a country I have visited three times in pursuit of cricket. This book sets the game in its curious historical context.
5. ‘Fred Trueman: The Authorised Biography’ by Chris Waters: I nominated it for the MCC Cricket Society Book of the Year, having helped the author with some research at Lord’s. I met Chris for the first and only time at the BOTY event – and we were last out of the bar celebrating his win!
6. ’ ‘Beyond a Boundary’ by C.L.R. James: I have read it more than once. It is special.
7. ‘England: The Biography’ by Simon Wilde: A wonderfully organised and researched book.
8. ‘That Will Be England Gone’ by Michael Henderson: It has just come out. It is rather a surprise to me to be including it, but I was given it and had feared that I might view it with some disdain. It touches on all areas of the arts, going way above my head; but every time Henderson wrote about matters that I could relate to – the Old Trafford of his childhood and the pictures in the Lord’s pavilion spring to mind - I agreed so strongly with what he wrote that I have given him the benefit of the doubt in other areas. I hope that makes sense. He writes well without the pretension that mars some similar authors.
9. ‘Original Spin’ by Vic Marks: Simply because I reviewed it well and I really like the author – not the best of reasons, but it is my list!
10. ‘The Authors XI’: A book by many different ‘proper’ authors who combined to re-enact in 2012 the summer of a hundred years earlier when Conan Doyle and others had taken the field.
I gave it 10 in the days when we had a rather absurd marking system in the ACS Journal. No cricket book merits ten, David Frith very politely protested!
Miller added: “I also considered ‘46 Not Out’ by RC Robertson-Glasgow and Pat Murphy’s book on Warwickshire in 1994. I ought really to have something by Gideon Haigh, his book on Iverson perhaps.”
The reasons behind the inclusion of certain books in this list are very personal. But that is how we define’ favourite’. It must be personal to a great extent.
There are some fine books chosen by Douglas Miller and most of them are worth a reread.