100 Best Cricket Books of All Time

Mario is elated to find Chester. He begs his parents to let him keep the shiny insect in the newsstand, assuring his bug-fearing mother that crickets are harmless, maybe even good luck. What ensues is an altogether captivating spin on the city mouse/country mouse story, as Chester adjusts to the bustle of the big city. Despite the cricket's comfortable matchbox bed (with Kleenex sheets); the fancy, seven-tiered pagoda cricket cage from Sai Fong's novelty shop; tasty mulberry leaves; the jolly company of Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat; and even his new-found fame as "the most famous musician in New York City," Chester begins to miss his peaceful life in the Connecticut countryside. The Cricket in Times Square--a Newbery Honor Book in 1961--is charmingly illustrated by the well-loved Garth Williams, and the tiniest details of this elegantly spun, vividly told, surprisingly suspenseful tale will stick with children for years and years. Make sure this classic sits on the shelf of your favorite child, right next to The Wind in the Willows. (Ages 9 to 12)

David left behind Jonny, Jonny’s sister Becky and half-brother Andy, and his wife Janet, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer at the time of his death. From these incredibly tough circumstances, Jonny and his family strived to find an even keel and come to terms with the loss of their father and husband.

Jonny found his way through his dedication to sport. He was a gifted and natural athlete, with potential careers ahead of him in rugby and football, but he eventually chose cricket and came to build a career that followed in his father’s footsteps, eventually reaching the pinnacle of the sport and breaking the record for most Test runs in a year by a wicketkeeper.

Written with multiple-award-winning writer Duncan Hamilton, this is an incredible story of triumph over adversity and a memoir with far-reaching lessons about determination and the will to overcome.

He was the top Test batman in the world, with numbers bettered only by the great Don Bradman – then captain Steve Smith led Australia into a cheating scandal that stunned cricket. How did a team with such hard-edged history reach crisis point under Smith, and what happened on their tour of South Africa to cause such a failure of culture on the world stage?

This is a full and frank narrative of Smith’s captaincy, David Warner's influence, the dramas that beset Australian cricket, and a blow-by-blow account from Ashes high to Cape Town low, from someone who was there for every ball and every statement. Geoff Lemon writes a dramatic story that exposes how the actions of a few young men shook the very foundations of the Australian cricket establishment, and where the future might lead.

He did play for Barnsley and later--though intermittently--for his beloved Yorkshire. Fated to be the twelfth man, however, he left for Leicestershire from where, though he played regularly, he chose instead to go into umpiring. The rest, as they say, is history; but it is an interesting history of a miner's son who became a worldwide celebrity and chose, after retiring from cricket, to tell his millions of adoring fan the whole tale.

Growing up in Barnsley, becoming a professional cricketer, then training as an umpire--all the steps along the way are lovingly recorded in My Autobiography. The first umpire to become a celebrity and all-round "character", Dickie Bird never once forgot his fans. Signing autographs for children after gruelling days on the Test circuit, always having a word for waiting interviewers, forever friendly with the press--Dickie Bird always eschewed the trappings of fame. And fortune--twice he turned down lucrative offers to leave England and become a celebrity umpire abroad.

66 Test matches, three World Cup finals and 92 one-day Internationals after that fateful day at Barnsley Cricket Club, Dickie Bird retired from his sport with more than a few tears. He had spent more than 50 years controlling the enthusiasm of the world's greatest players while "married to cricket", and if there is one thing he puts across in his book, it is his passion for the game.

With an introduction by fellow Barnsley-man and cricketer Michael Parkinson, this book--now the bestselling British sports autobiography of all time--is written with Bird's trademark bluntness (and he owes much to the talent of his ghost-writer, Keith Lodge, once of the Barnsley Chronicle). The enthralling story he tells will appeal not only to cricket lovers but to anyone interested in human nature in general.