A FIELD OF TENTS AND WAVING COLOURS

Neville Cardus writing on Cricket

Introduction by Gideon Haigh

‘Before him, cricket was reported . . . with him it was for the first time appreciated, felt, and imaginatively described’ – John Arlott

To accompany The Great Romantic, Duncan Hamilton’s acclaimed, award-winning new biography of the greatest cricket writer of all, who invented cricket writing as we know it: Neville Cardus, and on the centenary of Cardus’s first piece on cricket, Safe Haven publishes a volume of his best cricket writings.

Cardus wrote about cricket for many years in the (then Manchester) Guardian, but also for a host of other publications. Before him, cricket writing meant drybones match reports full of statistics and circumlocution. Cardus, however, wrote about the event: the sylvan ground, the grace of a perfectly executed cover drive, the emotion of watching Victor Trumper in full flow. 

Here is Cardus on Don Bradman, Victor Trumper, Denis Compton and Richie Benaud, at Roses matches and the arcadian cricket festival at Dover beneath Shakespeare Cliff, seeing the Australians defeated at Eastbourne – and of course at the home of cricket, Lord’s.

A handsome small hardback with retro cover illustration, here is a book for every lover of fine writing on the Summer Game.

Neville Cardus wrote about cricket for many years in the then Manchester Guardian, or which he was also chief music critic. His best-loved books include Good Days and Days in the Sun. He died in 1975.

Gideon Haigh has been described as ‘our greatest living cricket writer’. His books include Mystery Spinner and The Big Ship.

ISBN 978 1 91604 530 9
224pp
198 x 129 mm
jacketed hardback
£14.99

‘Thoughtfully arranged, and covering a span from the honeymoon 1920s to the often grumpy-old-man 60s and 70s, it includes many of Cardus’s greatest hits… These and other pieces nicely complement Duncan Hamilton’s new biography of Cardus’, David Kynaston, Guardian

‘The perfect read on a summer’s afternoon in the garden, or, better still, on the boundary’, The Cricketer

‘A lovely companion [to Duncan Hamilton’s biography] in a charming jacket with an excellent introduction by Gideon Haigh,’ John Hotten, Wisden Cricket Monthly

‘A handsome introduction to Cardus… In the years ahead, when our cricket is given increasingly to the T20 thrash and something called The Hundred, we shall revisit Cardus to restore our spirits, and very possibly to revive our souls’, Michael Henderson, The Critic