Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Cricketing biographies go head to head

09.03.10 | Graeme Neill in The Bookseller

Biographies of Imran Khan, Kim Hughes and a William Hill winning memoir of Harold Larwood are among the titles shortlisted for The Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award 2010.

The winner of the award, now in its 30th year, will be announced at the Long Room in Lord's on 26th April and will pick up a cheque for £3,000. The panel of judges is chaired by writer and broadcaster and former England and Somerset cricketer Vic Marks.

The other judges are David Kynaston and Stephen Fay from the MCC and Stephen Green and Chris Finch from The Cricket Society.  Nigel Hancock of The Cricket Society is the competition’s
administrator. The shortlist chose five titles from a longlist of 14.

Marks said: "There is a strong international theme to this year’s list.  All five books have their advocates among the judges and I anticipate frank and lively exchanges when we meet later this month to determine a winner."

The shortlist:

Of Didcot and the Demon: The cricketing times of Alan Gibson [Fairfield Books]; by Anthony Gibson

Harold Larwood [Quercus]; by Duncan Hamilton

Empire and Cricket: The South African experience, 1884-1914 [Unisa Press]; edited by Bruce Murray and Goolam Vahed

Golden Boy: The bad old days of Australian cricket [Allen and Unwin]; by Christian Ryan

Imran Khan: The cricketer, the celebrity, the politician [HarperCollins]; by Christopher Sandford

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