Gideon Haigh wins Cricket Society-MCC Book of the Year for brilliant portrait of Shane Warne
The much-decorated Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh has won the Cricket Society and MCC's Book of the Year Award for 2013 with On Warne, his portrait of the great Australian leg-spinner, Shane Warne. Haigh's insightful technical analysis of the mechanics of Warne's bowling, combined with brilliantly perceptive views of the cricketer's eventful life in cricket both on and off the field, impressed a panel of judges chaired by former Somerset and England off-spinner Vic Marks, who now writes for the Observer and Guardian newspapers. It was judged to be the best in a shortlist of six that comprised Settling the Score, by Peter Gibbs; The Plan, by Steve James; Fibber in the Heat, by Miles Jupp; Never a Gentleman's Game, by Malcolm Knox; and A Remarkable Man: the Story of George Chesterton, by Andrew Murtagh. Haigh has written more than 30 books and won numerous awards, including the Jack Pollard Trophy, the annual literary prize of the Australian Cricket