The Sports Bookshelf

Books 'reflect passion and knowledge' - judges' chair Vic Marks The shortlist of six for the 2017 Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award shortlist has been announced. The list comprises books by cricket presenter Mark Nicholas and journalist Emma John, who both write about their love for and fascination with cricket, a couple of titles by ex-England players in Graeme Fowler and Alan Butcher, the latest from the brilliant Gideon Haigh and a portrait of Pakistan cricket by Peter Oborne and Richard Heller. Chair of judges Vic Marks said: “There is some good writing here. All six books reflect passion for and knowledge about their subject matter.  I look forward to lively discussion at the judges’ final meeting; there is no doubt we will come up with a worthy winner." The competition, run by the Cricket Society since 1970 and in partnership with MCC since 2009, is for books nominated by MCC and Cricket Society Members, and is highly regarded by write

Simon Lister pictured at Lord's after receiving his award for Fire in Babylon Cricket writer and BBC TV news producer Simon Lister has won the prestigious Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year award for 2016 with Fire in Babylon: How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet. In what chair of judges Vic Marks hailed as an exceptional year for cricket writing and research, Lister beat off a strong field that included two books about WG Grace and one providing a definitive story of cricket’s County Championship. Lister received certificates and a £3000 award in front of a large audience in the Long Room at Lord's, which was packed with MCC and Cricket Society members and officers, authors and their publishers and guest cricketing journalists and writers. Those books that made the shortlist but missed out on the top prize were: Cricket: The Game of Life: Every reason to celebrate , by Scyld Berry (Hodder & Stoughton) Summer's Crown: The

Novelist and genealogy expert pips strong field Favourite Wounded Tiger misses out Another 'snub' for Kevin Pietersen Journalist and historical novelist Dan Waddell has won the Cricket Society/MCC Book of the Year award for his book about an English cricket team's tour of Nazi Germany - Field of Shadows. Waddell traces the story of a three-match series played in Berlin in 1937 by a team called the Gentlemen of Worcestershire, a disparate collection of mavericks, minor nobility, ex-county cricketers, rich businessmen and schoolboys led former Worcestershire County Cricket Club skipper Major Maurice Jewell, who agreed to play in unofficial Test matches against Germany, whose Nazi sports minister, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, had hit upon the idea on a visit to Lords. According to one reviewer, Waddell "maintains a deft balance between amiable cricketing encounters and the encroaching horrors of Nazi Germany in a narrative that blends the amusing, touchin

Given that it is seemingly impossible to keep him out of the news, it probably comes as no surprise that the shortlist for the 2015 Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award contains two books about Kevin Pietersen. His own, highly controversial autobiography KP is one. The other is journalist Simon Wilde’s excellent and rather more balanced portrait, simply entitled: On Pietersen. Challenging those two titles for the £3,000 first prize will be Chris Waters, who is seeking to win the award for a second time with 10 for 10: Hedley Verity and the Story of Cricket's Greatest Bowling Feat.  The Yorkshire Post cricket writer won in 2012 with Fred Trueman: The Authorised Biography. Were 10 for 10 to emerge as the judges' choice there would be echoes of the 1986 success enjoyed by Alan Hill with Hedley Verity: A Portrait of a Cricketer. Also on the shortlist are Christopher Sandford's poignant work The Final Over: The Cricketers of Summer 1914 , which looks at

Political journalist James Astill has won the 2014 MCC-Cricket Society book of the year award for The Great Tamasha: Cricket, Corruption and the Turbulent Rise of Modern india. Essentially, it is story of how cricket became Indianised, first via the increasing success of India in international cricket and more recently with the creation of the cash-rich Indian Premier League, the enormously hyped and hugely popular Twenty20 competition, which has seen the powerbase in the world game shift from London to Delhi. But The Great Tamasha, published by Bloomsbury, is a book that goes beyond sport to present a history of contemporary India, explaining how cricket in India, with all of its politics and intrigue, offers a picture of the country in microcosm, beset by corruption, cynicism and vast inequalities, and driven by a shameless fight for wealth and power. Astill, the political editor of The Economist, spent a number of years as the magazine’s bureau chief in Delhi. He has a deep