Thommo was feared by batsmen all around the world. Sri Lankan Sunil Wettimuny recalls facing one of Thommo's balls: Never before or since that day did I know fear on the cricket field. Mike Brearley, the Middlesex captain who led England during the World Series Cricket incursion, said of Thommo: Broken marriages, conflicts of loyalty, the ...

Master Laster takes you beyond Sachin Tendulkar’s career aggregates and passionate assertions . . . There are almost as many books about Sachin Tendulkar as there are centuries by him. But, just as there is only one Tendulkar century that came in a winning run chase in the last innings of a Test match, rare are the books that look at his personal records through the prism of how much they mattered to the team. In fact there are none, because the easiest thing to do is to produce adulatory tomes for his doting fans. But there are an equal number of cricket fans out there who want to know something more than gushing accolades and who don't shy away from asking difficult questions. The book covers: 1. a quarter of a century of Indian cricket, bringing back to life many a game played during Tendulkar’s time. 2. it indulges fans in one of the enduring joys of cricket, discussing a point threadbare from multiple angles. 3. how many of his centuries made a difference to the team? 4. what is his track record under pressure? None of the books on Tendulkar has engaged fans in these debates. There is the odd question raised here or a critical comment made there in memoirs by former cricketers, but not a single book that sifts through the mountain of Tendulkar records to see what value can be attached to them from a team’s point of view. An exercise like that can be quite revealing, even startling, and certainly a lot of fun for cricket lovers. It sets the Tendulkar debate against specific data, taking it beyond career aggregates and passionate assertions. Master Laster covers the variables in the game, and its infinite possibilities. It also deals with why this game is so fascinates so many of us.

Set during Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket revolution, this book tells the story of the Australian Test cricketers plucked from the backwaters of the domestic game to take on full-strength international sides. Some became cricketing greats. Others were lost in the footnotes of history. But all have important stories to share. From 1977/78 to the reconciliation, two Australian sides competed in parallel universes: World Series Cricket's glamorous rock star realm and the attritional reality of Test cricket fought by predominantly younger, poorly paid men honouring the baggy green. Friendships were broken, and new bonds formed, as the public first sided with the traditional game before backing World Series Cricket in greater numbers. Kerry Packer eventually won the cricketing war. However, Test cricket survived because of those who carried the Australian banner for the game. These players became known as the 'Establishment Boys' and until now they have barely been acknowledged.

This remarkable true story pays tribute to a band of Aboriginal boys who grew up together in one group home - many succeeding spectacularly in later life. In 1945, Anglican priest Father Percy Smith brought six boys from their Northern Territory home to an Adelaide beach suburb. There, they became the first boys of St Francis, a place that would house 50 such boys over 11 years. Some were sent, with the blessing of their mothers, to gain an education. Others were members of the Stolen Generations. In their interviews with Ashley Mallett, many of these men recall Father Smith's kindness and care. His successors, however, were often brutal, and the boys faced prejudice in a wider world largely built to exclude Indigenous Australians. The Boys from St Francis is a multi-layered tale of triumph against the odds - using the early building blocks of education and sporting prowess. Many of them went on to become fiercely effective advocates for Aboriginal causes, achieving significant progress not just for themselves, but for Aboriginal people, changing their world for the better. Activist Charles Perkins, the first Indigenous man to receive a university degree, commenced his status as a national icon with the 1965 Freedom Rides. John Moriarty, the first Indigenous man picked for the national soccer team, designed the famous Dreaming images for five Qantas planes. Harold Thomas created the iconic Aboriginal flag. Vince Copley played football for the Port Adelaide Magpies. George Kruger worked with Fred Hollows in remote Indigenous communities for nearly 20 years. The Boys from St Francis is a sometimes shocking, but ultimately hopeful book about black and white Australia, told through one constellation of lives, sharing one seaside address.

What value can an old man have, who no longer leaves his bed and seldom leaves his room located in the attic of his retirement home? He’s irascible and impatient with his room-mate and any other residents who happen to call by his room. Inside his head are memories which are alive. Life in a country town after migrating from Scotland at the age of five. Of his birth family he is the last man standing; there is no one who remembers things quite the way that he does. To Andy, his parents, his brothers and his cousins live on, if only in his memory. For eighty years he lived a full life, but a runaway horse ten years ago, put a stop to his meanderings beside Sydney Harbour. He feels all but forgotten by all his own kith and kin who are busy living their own lives. This might have been the end of his story, if not for the arrival of Maggie who inspires Andy to write again.

Intimidation. Cunning. Contempt. The greatest pace bowlers have a vast arsenal at their disposal. Australian quicks have perfected the art of re-arranging batsmen's ribcages and life-priorities. Death stares and old-fashion lip are used in combination with explosive pace, tactical guile and the ability to make a cricket ball do unprecedentedly vicious things. The Quicks profiles the most successful, frighteningly-fast and charismatic Australian bowlers to ever terrorise the Poms… and every other cricketing nation. Author Robert Drane tells the stories of the men who have captivated the Australian sporting public, from Lillee and Thomson, to McGrath, Johnson and the modern menace of Starc, Cummins and Hazlewood.

asters of the art. They include Bill O’Reilly, who Sir Donald Bradman claimed to have been the greatest bowler of his experience; Clarrie Grimmett, arguably the 'father' of spin bowling in Australia; and the greatest spinner of the modern era, Shane Warne. The many other spin bowlers included in the book include Arthur Mailey, Don Blackie, Chuck Fleetwood-Smith, Jack Iverson, Richie Benaud, Jim Higgs, Tim May, Stuart MacGill and Nathan Lyon.  

Spin bowlers in cricket are masters at making the ball loop slowly through the air to confuse batsmen. Legends of the game know the magic combinations of top-spin, side-spin and off-spin necessary to fool the opposition. The Magic of Spin, dissects the various aspects of spin bowling through the stories of the bowlers themselves. In addition it includes the history and evolution of spin bowling: the wrong’un or googly was 'invented' by Bernard (BJT) Bosenquet; Grimmett 'invented' the flipper, the ball Warne in later years bowled so brilliantly; and Bill O’Reilly learned about spin bowling by watching Grimmett like a hawk in Test matches. The batsmen who have played the great spinners through the years will also help to explain the dark art of spinning.

'Spin bowling is magical and to a lot of people [a few batsmen included] a mystery.' – Ian Chappell