by Mayukh Ghosh
Max Bonnell spent six of his formative years in Uganda. His first favourite cricketer was Sam Walusimbi, the all-rounder from Uganda who opened the batting for East Africa in the 1975 World Cup.
Max’s father coached Walusimbi. Those were the days in which he learnt the basics of the game.
A season in Birmingham League and then twenty years in Sydney Grade Cricket is not too bad. Moreover, he once dismissed a 17-year-old bloke named Mark Waugh on 99. And, to top it all, he once opened the bowling and bowled two consecutive maidens to Adam Gilchrist.
He was a mature reader at an early age.
“Good cricket writing was not plentiful when I was young. Half the books in Australia seemed to be written by RS Whitington, and they were dreadful - full of inaccuracies, and with strange digressions in which he aired his reactionary political views and whatever grievances he was engaged in at the time (usually with Bradman or anyone who disagreed with Prime Minister Menzies). He was also a terrible apologist for South Africa's apartheid. Jack Fingleton was always engaging and interesting, although (like Whitington) his loathing of Bradman often got in the way of whatever he was trying to say. Then there were endless tour books, and ghosted autobiographies. I can't say I was greatly influenced (except negatively) by the cricket writing of my youth! “
Max began his writing career with pieces on Grade cricket for the Sydney Morning Herald and later in Ken Piesse’s Cricketer magazine. He, by then, had someone to look up to.
“What that experience (of writing) told me was that about half of published cricket history at the time was wrong. Maybe that's harsh - but an awful lot was wrong. The first person to write the story tended to be believed later, and in Australia, the first person to write the story was often Whitington, who was unbelievably slipshod, or Jack Pollard, who was a great spinner of yarns but never cared all that much for facts. And what I found was that when you went digging for facts, the true story often turned out to be really interesting. A lot of writers on cricket history will tell you that it's the research they enjoy most - and the trick in writing is not to let your book become the story of your research process. I think David Frith was one of the first writers to look behind the conventional story and dig up unexpected truths, and those of us who have done the same thing since really stand on his shoulders.”
David Frith has influenced Max to a great extent.
And Frith himself has great things to tell about Max’s work
“Max is among the elite, and his "academic" works adorn the game.”
Max writes books on the less famous names. The likes of Tibby Cotter, JJ Ferris, Norman Callaway, Johnny Taylor, Bert Ironmonger, Herbie Collins etc.
They are all brilliantly researched but, as expected with these cricketers being the subjects, none of them ever became a ‘bestseller’.
No wonder a man of such quality has thought long and hard before choosing his ten favourite cricket books.
Here they are:
The Summer Game by Gideon Haigh: You could include almost any of his books on this list, but the Summer Game was ambitious, thoughtful and wonderfully executed. There isn't a word in it you'd change.
10 for 66 and All That by Arthur Mailey: I'm not sure how true Mailey's memoir was. But it was a brilliant piece of work, projecting a carefully crafted Mailey persona as the slightly downtrodden, overawed man who somehow found himself painting a landscape in the presence of the King and Queen. And of course, the Trumper chapter is the most famous set piece in all of cricket writing.
Cricket Crisis by Jack Fingleton: Characteristic of its author, its tone is occasionally combative and even surly, but it's full of insight and strong opinion.
By His Own Hand by David Frith: Again, plenty of Frith work to choose from, but only someone with Frith's encyclopaedic knowledge of the game and shrewd eye for human frailty would have even contemplated a book on cricketing suicides, much less executed it as well as this.
Beyond a Boundary by CLR James: A book that places the game squarely in the context of its culture and reminds us that we can't understand cricket if we understand nothing else.
A Social History of English Cricket by Derek Birley: Another wonderful work that explains the game's development through a sharp knowledge of its place in the wider society.
8 Days A Week by Jonathan Agnew: The candid season diary is now a staple of cricket books (and Ed Cowan's was one of the best), but Agnew's was the first good one.
Golden Boy by Christian Ryan: It is not just a biography of a controversial Australian captain, Kim Hughes, but explores the state of the Australian game at a rather low ebb. I played my own best cricket in the period covered by this, and knew some of the players involved, so it has special resonance for me.
The Art of Captaincy by Mike Brearley: I don't think I learned much about captaincy from this ("have Ian Botham in your team" is not a universally helpful tip) but it's full of interesting ideas and insights.
And
Wisden: Any year, doesn't matter.
Max only gets interested in a subject if he finds there’s something new to tell. He is not interested to write the 37th biography of Bradman. He’d rather do fresh research and write on lesser known people.
His books, even though difficult to get, are all worth reading. And so are the books he has chosen in this list of ‘favourites’.