Test Cricket — the Unauthorised Biography: A Jarrod Kimber gift to students and fans alike

“There is a dark history in cricket. There is something about the game that chews people up like no other sport. It’s the Woody Allen of sports, permanently on the couch, analysing itself. Its players do the same.” — Jarrod Kimber, Test Cricket — the Unauthorised Biography

Unless you have been living under a rock, you know by now that Jarrod Kimber is the finest contemporary young cricket writer. Take away one of ‘contemporary’ and ‘young’, and it will still not be an exaggeration. Take away both, and you will still not be scoffed at. And it is for a reason.

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Cricket has had her fair share of authors and historians. The romantics, the analytical, the chroniclers, you name them, you have them. You have David Frith, that doyen of cricket historians who often has the ultimate word on every topic he touches; Neville Cardus, gifted with lyrical prose marred by a ridiculous disrespect for facts; Arthur Mailey, oscillating between delicious prose and tongue-in-cheek humour; Stephen Chalke, who ventured deep into the lives of near-obscure cricketers; and more.

But Kimber is different, for he is the 21st-century cricket writer. Unlike masters of the past, he belongs to the internet era. This is his fourth book, but it is the internet that made Kimber, Kimber.

And so, he decided to write a book on the past and present of the sport — for the internet generation. He decided not to delve in details of the bygone era; he explains the grandeur of Grace, the majesty of Trumper, the reason they call a batsman The Don, the statement of Viv, the mastery of Lillee, the authority of Pollock, the impact of Imran, the uniqueness of Warne and Murali, and a very personalised Sachin.

And among everything, Kimber finds his own bank clerk who went to war; he talks of Krom Hendriks and George Parker; he provides his own version of Bodyline; he dissects World Series Cricket; he elaborates on why 1990s were more golden than The Golden Age of cricket; how it came down crashing as some of the greatest succumbed to greed; the growth of women’s cricket amidst struggles; and the joy of Afghanistan cricket.

Test Cricket — the Unauthorised Biography is not the best cricket book ever written. But it is an important cricket book, a necessary one for the generation known for treating history of the sport with supreme disdain. It is about the glorious past of the sport, from the 1800s to the 1900s to World Cup 2015, all written in neat little chapters, to be consumed even by the casual reader at a a-chapter-a-day pace.

It is just that Kimber does not let you stop at a single chapter. He makes you read on, for his style is inimitable, especially among contemporaries. And then, there are little snippets throughout the book, providing interesting bits of trivia. If there is a collection on cricket quotes from the 21st century, Kimber may account for a chunk of it. Do sample a few:

On heavy scoring in the 1930s: “By the 1930s batsmen were clocking cricket like it was some flawed 1980s video game.”

“Procter bowled chest front on, holding the ball in both hands, and then a windmill action. It was like he bowled the ball twice, and off the wrong foot both times. Even if he did bowl two balls, you still wouldn’t have hit either of them.”

On Bodyline: “A cricketing act of beautiful bastardry.”

On Sabina Park, 1975-76: “The scoreboard read 3/273. But it was written in blood.”

“Richard Hadlee seemed to pop out of a 1920s film and straight into the bowling crease.”

“When the ball was outside off stump, Greenidge played it like it had slept with his sister.”

On the Ws: “All three delivered by the same midwife. Of all the midwives who have helped deliver cricketers, she surely had the softest hands.”

“Adam Gilchrist is a nice man. But what that nice man did to the bowlers of the world was a crime.”

“While Australia was building one of the best empires in cricket, India went about owning the whole planet of cricket.”

I can go on, but I will probably be sued under copyright law or something similar for over-quoting.

All in all, it is a must-read for every cricket-lover. For the casual fan, this is your most concise portal to names you have only heard of. For the enthusiastic student, this can be your handbook as long as the sport stays with you. And as for the historian, you will find yourself nodding and smiling as you read on. There are a few minor errors (typographical or otherwise), but they will certainly be rectified in the second edition — which, I presume, is not too far away.

Test Cricket — the Unauthorised Biography
Hardie Grant Books
Written by Jarrod Kimber
296 pages

(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor at CricketCountry and CricLife. He blogs here and can be followed on Twitter here.)