A collection of essays on cricket collated from various online blogs including ESPNcricinfo.

For all the glamour and new-found wealth that has come to cricket thanks to the IPL, the sport has rarely faced such an uncertain future. The gold standard of cricket - Test matches - is being sidelined in some countries by the shorter forms of the game. While the sport is being transformed, administrators are struggling to keep pace with it all. Yet, despite all of this, the sport's essential elements remain in place: great games are played, new stars rise up and old stars step back and retire. In this new collection of writing, Gideon Haigh takes the pulse of the game today, and in particular looks at the decline of the sport in Australia, where the once all-conquering men in the 'baggy green' suddenly found themselves struggling to impose themselves on their opponents.

R.K. Laxman, India'S Best-Loved Cartoonist, Is Also One Of Our Most Gifted Storytellers. The Same Acerbic Wit And Quizzical Insights That Characterize His Cartoons Are In Ample Evidence In His Writings As Well. This Ominous Volume Contains His Two Novels, The Hotel Riviera And The Messenger, And The Tunnel Of Time, His Autobiography.

An Indian Cricket Century Is A Collection Of The Best Essays Written By Dr Sujit Mukherjee, Over Four Decades. The Essays Range From Portraits Of Great Cricketers Like Vijay Merchant And Sunil Gavaskar To Wonderfully Witty Recollections Of Cricket As Played In Locations Like Patna And Philadelphia. This Book, In Sum, Presents The Distilled Reflections On Our National Obsession Of Our Finest Writer On The Sport.

C.L.R. James is the author of unquestionably the best book ever written about cricket: "Beyond a Boundary" - indeed, one of the finest books written about sport, period. In print ever since its publication in 1963, it has just been reissued again by Yellow Jersey. But James wrote about cricket all his life, though he only ever published one other book on the game, and this is it. Originally published by Allison and Busby, and out of print for the last ten years, it is now republished as part of Aurum's highest-quality cricket list, under a new title and with a striking cover tied in with the cover design of "Beyond a Boundary". "A Majestic Innings" collects together appreciations of great cricketers from Bradman to Botham, Dexter to David Gower, pieces on cricket controversies like the Bodyline series and the D'Oliviera affair, letters to friends like John Arlott and V.S. Naipaul, and above all writings on James's first love, West Indies cricket - on Gary Sobers, Sir Frank Worrell, Learie Constantine, and even the early promise of a young Guyanian called Clive Lloyd. Aurum's cricket list already published almost all the finest writers on the game: Derek Birley, Gideon Haigh, David Frith, David Rayvern Allen - and now it has added C.L.R. James.

Gideon HaighOCOs first collection of cricket pieces, Game for Anything, was published by Aurum in 2004 and soon sold out. This is the follow-up, also featuring a striking and off-beat cover picture. Since Game for Anything appeared, Haigh has published two more books with Aurum: his book on the remarkable 2005 Ashes series and his preceding coverage for the Guardian really made his name as the best writer currently covering the game, and sold extremely well. And his collaboration with Wisden on Peter the Cat and other Unexpected Obituaries from Wisden has already been hailed as a delightful and covetable little volume. Meanwhile HaighOCOs earlier Mystery Spinner is now acknowledged as one of the classics about the game, and his hilarious diary of a club cricket season, Many a Slip, continues to sell and reprint. In this new collection of cricket writing Haigh ranges from tributes on the death of great players like Bradman and Miller, essays on perennial cause celebres like Bodyline, profiles of modern virtuosi like Viv Richards and Steve Waugh, and whimsical disquisitions on everything from stumps and boxes to wicketkeeping and appealing. Sure to be well-reviewed, it will be bought by HaighOCOs ever-growing band of admirers. "