The Oxford Companion to Australian Sport appears in a revised, updated and greatly expanded new edition. Produced by the Australian Society for Sports History, this is the first authoritative and encyclopedic reference work on all sports played in Australia. It provides a comprehensive overview of the history and character of the innumerable codes that constitute the Australian sporting character. All sports are covered - not just the major ones like cricket, Australian Rules, lawn tennis, and horse-racing. The Companion offers succinct and informative entries on famous sportsmen and women, and on major institutions, competitions and venues. The Companion also offers thematic essays on crucial aspects of the history, culture and professionalization of sport in Australia. For the first time readers have access to biographies of sporting champions from different codes, all of whom rub shoulders in this literary pantheon. For the second edition, the editors have commissionedfour major new thematic essays: Coaching, Disabled Sportsmen and Women, Regionalism, and the Olympic Winter Games. Seven more sports have been added (badminton, bicycle racing, curling, fives, petanque, ring bowls, and surfing), along with 38 additional clubs. The second edition boasts 240 new biographies. One of its major features is a `list of lists', which provides full details about major competitions such as the Stawell Gift, Davis Cup finals, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, the Sheffield Shield, Brownlow Medallists - to name just a few of the lists contained in this Appendix. Greatly expanded and offering a readable cultural history of Australian sport, the Oxford Companion to Australian Sport is essential reading for sportsmen and women, administrators, journalists and sports followers.

The Oxford Companion to Australian Cricket covers every aspect of a sport in which Australians have long excelled and which at various times has inspired and united the nation. No other book on Australian cricket offers such a combination of historical and statistical information andanalytical commentary. For the first time cricket followers around the world will be able to access facts, statistics, biography and commentary within a single book. The Companion examines the origins and development of cricket in this country, the great personalities who have dominated the sport inthe eyes of the world, and its important role in shaping sporting tradition and culture in Australia.Produced in association with the Australian Society for Sports History, the Companion is edited by six specialists with long and varied connections with the sport. It includes contributions by numerous writers around Australia, including a dozen celebrity authors writing on aspects of the sport withwhich they are associated. There are entries on every cricketer who has represented Australia at Test level, male and female, as well as notable Shield players. These biographical entries also include full statistical data updated to 1995/96. Fifteen legendary cricketers - from Trumper and Bradmanto Benaud and the Chappells - are considered in full-length essays of 1000 words or more. In addition, there are articles on great commentators (e.g. Alan McGilvray, Norman May), barrackers ('Yabba'), officials and entrepreneurs, coaches, politicians, umpires, scorers, writers and equipment makers.No-one who has made a significant contribution to Australian cricket is ignored. However, the Companion is not just a biographical work. Australia's seven Test grounds all rate individual entries, along with 30 other venues. Cricket being a highly institutionalised and traditional sport, space is devoted to the history and achievements of 50 major cricket clubs and institutions.Interspersed throughout the text are fifty entries covering bizarre, humorous and controversial events over the past 150 years. These include Dennis Lillee's aluminium bat affair, Terry Alderman's fateful encounter with an English fan in Perth, marathon innings and unforgettable hat-tricks,Aboriginal tours in the nineteenth century and Bradman's Invincibles almost a century later, tied Tests and stuffed swallow. Fondly recalled by cricket followers, these 'mood pieces' form one of the most entertaining features of an always accessible and readable Companion.The core of the Companion is its extended critical and analytical coverage of Australian cricket. Approximately one-third of the Companion is devoted to essay-length articles on major aspects of the sport and on our cricketing relations with every other cricket-playing country. Some of thesethematic essays are listed below:The Ashes All-rounders Barrackers Bodyline Bradman Costume Country Week Crowds Ethnicity Film Gambling Humour Laws of Cricket Media Radio Rebel tours Sheffield Shield Sponsorship Television Umpires and umpiring Violence Women Readers of books on cricket insist on the most accurate and extensive statistical information. Considerable space is devoted in ours to individuals' statistics at the Test and state levels - matches played and captained, innings, not out, highest scores, total runs, centuries, batting averages,wickets, runs conceded, five wicket performances, bowling averages. Limited overs cricket is covered in full - both international and domestic. There is additional information about crowds, benefit matches, the World Cup, hat-tricks, length of overs, and throwing (33 recorded instances to date). Forgreater ease of access, most of this information accompanies individual entries on cricketers, but a statistical appendix will include all the facts about leading run scorers and wicket takers, leading wicket keepers and fielders, partnership records, highest and lowest innings totals, youngest andoldest players, highest individual innings, and tied matches. Finally, the Companion features 150 superb photographs of famous players, venues and events, plus an exhaustive bibliography.

Perfect for fans and scholars alike, this Companion explores cricket's origins, global reach, iconic personalities and enduring popularity.

Sports history offers many profound insights into the character and complexities of modern imperial rule. This book examines the fortunes of cricket in various colonies as the sport spread across the British Empire. It helps to explain why cricket was so successful, even in places like India, Pakistan and the West Indies where the Anglo-Saxon element remained in a small minority. The story of imperial cricket is really about the colonial quest for identity in the face of the colonisers' search for authority. The cricket phenomenon was established in nineteenth-century England when the Victorians began glorifying the game as a perfect system of manners, ethics and morals. Cricket has exemplified the colonial relationship between England and Australia and expressed imperialist notions to the greatest extent. In the study of the transfer of imperial cultural forms, South Africa provides one of the most fascinating case studies. From its beginnings in semi-organised form through its unfolding into a contemporary internationalised structure, Caribbean cricket has both marked and been marked by a tight affiliation with complex social processing in the islands and states which make up the West Indies. New Zealand rugby demonstrates many of the themes central to cricket in other countries. While cricket was played in India from 1721 and the Calcutta Cricket Club is probably the second oldest cricket club in the world, the indigenous population was not encouraged to play cricket.

Introducing themes of racial/political unification, commercialization, the media and globalization, this book explores the role of cricket and sport in each of the competing nations, with particular reference to the Cricket World Cup.

Phillips (history and sociology of sport, U. of South Australia) explores the changing role and techniques of coaching in Australia from the 1850s to the 1990s. Addresses such issues as ethics, sportsmanship, professionalism, and amateurism and documents the initiation of coaching education in Australia. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Spanning the wide world of sports, this volume is packed with every conceivable fact that anyone would possibly want to know about nearly 300 sports, including history and practice worldwide.