by Mayukh Ghosh
At the age of 21, Gideon Haigh wrote a book.
A business book written by a business journalist.
70,000 words written over a few weekends. When he got a copy in his hand, he read the first couple of paragraphs written on the first page. There were some silly typographical errors. He never read beyond that first page.
Then, in 1989, he moved to London.
A year later, while watching a rather boring County Championship match, he thought of trying his hand at serious cricket writing.
He admired David Frith and the kind of work he did at Wisden Cricket Monthly. He wrote a piece and posted it to Frith.
Within a week, Frith accepted it and published it in the next issue of the magazine.
We can, without even a tinge of exaggeration, say that the rest is history.
It indeed has been, but not without its fair share of ups and downs. He has now been a journalist for thirty-six years. Twenty-five of them as a freelancer. He wrote for all the leading magazines and newspapers.
And, of course, the books.
Some of them little-known. Others, even if known, hard to get.
He himself has no copies of some of his books.
But that did not stop him from being famous and, by all accounts, the most sought-after cricket writer at present.
And that is because most of what he wrote is very good. Not many have been able to do that.
The writer in Gideon Haigh was born long back, perhaps in the late 1970s. He borrowed a copy of Ray Robinson’s classic’ On Top Down Under’ from the local library and was at once in awe of the staggering scholarship of Robinson.
Over all these years, he has read hundreds, if not thousands, of cricket books. Naturally, it has been difficult for him to pick an XI from all those, but he has now managed to do it!
So, here they are (not in any order):
The Willow Wand by Derek Birley: “Astute, unsentimental, waspish, contrarian”
Australia 55 by Alan Ross: “The best tour book of all”
Once, to answer which book he would like most for Christmas, Haigh said, ” I would like my copy of Australia 55 back!”
The Game of Life by Scyld Berry: “Scyld's tour de force”
A Corner of a Foreign Field by Ramachandra Guha: “Mind-expanding panorama of Indian cricket”
Bodyline Autopsy by David Frith: “The go-to source on Bodyline”
Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer by Sujit Mukherjee: “A pearl on every page”
Cricket Prints by RC Robertson-Glasgow: “Pen pictures as an art form”
Quilt Winders and Pod Shavers by Hugh Barty-King: “Exquisitely researched social history”
Arlott by David Rayvern Allen: “The biography of cricket's greatest broadcaster”
Anyone But England by Mike Marqusee: “A great argument starter”
Beyond a Boundary by CLR James: “Ambitious, eclectic, soul-stirring”
Also, in the squad:
Golden Boy by Christian Ryan
Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development by Rowland Bowen
Cricket Crisis by Jack Fingleton
Pundits from Pakistan by Rahul Bhattacharya
The Tao of Cricket by Ashis Nandy
There are sixteen books in this squad. Pretty much a World XI. Worth exploring, just like the books of the man who made the list.