Spirit of Cricket: Reflections on Play and Life

(Paperback)

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The laws of cricket, like the laws of the land, aim at a sort of justice or balancing between different factions. The purpose behind cricket's laws, and behind changes in them, is often to calibrate the balance in the game between batsmen and bowlers, between attack and defence, between safety and risk. Cricketing lawmakers are interested in the overall appeal of the game to players and spectators alike.

Mike Brearley's brilliant THE SPIRIT OF CRICKET will alternate between issues and examples within the game - e.g. 'Mankading', the Australian ball-tampering scandal, intimidatory bowling, sledging, mental disintegration - as well as broader issues such as the spirit and letter of the law. It will discuss the issue of how far what purports to be justice (in law or in spirit) may or may not be the expression of the powerful within the activity or within society. It will also contrast cheating and corruption, and will reflect on the nature of penalties in regard to each. It will discuss the significance of the notion of the spirit of the game for umpires, groundsmen, administrators, media and spectators - as well of course as for players.

Reviews

[Brearley is] a thoughtful, engaging and eclectic thinker . . . There is something intrinsically fair-minded about Mike Brearley, open to exploring ideas wherever they come from, seeking out common ground, but at the same time anxious to avoid giving offence by reaching too-easy conclusions. That is the process that is at play in the pages of Spirit of Cricket.
This is no ordinary sporting hero's memoir, though it does include plenty of stories from his glory days

-- Peter Stanford * The Tablet *

Mike Brearley is a thoughtful and meticulous author. He regularly displayed similar traits when captaining England (he did so on 31 occasions, losing only four Tests) and he applies them again in Spirit of Cricket, a book he was born to
write. Brearley is an intelligent guide, well-qualified to lead readers through cricket's occasionally byzantine moral maze

* Birmingham Post *
One of my favourites of 2020 . . . a generous book -- Jon Hotten * Wisden Cricket Monthly *

Time after time, Brearley takes familiar cricketing dilemmas - balltampering, Mankading, sledging, etc. - and with elegant prose and courteous intelligence sheds fresh light on them, including areas on which he has changed his mind over time.
This delightful book would make a great gift for any cricket-lover who also has a brain, or even a soul.

* Church Times *

Author Bio

Mike Brearley OBE was educated at Cambridge, where he read classics and moral sciences, and captained the university. He played for Middlesex County Cricket Club intermittently from 1961 to 1983, captaining the side from 1971 to 1982. He first played for England in 1976 and captained the side from 1977 to 1980, winning seventeen test matches and losing only four. He was recalled to the captaincy in 1981 for the Ashes home series, leading England to one of their most famous victories. Since retiring from cricket in 1982, he trained and continues to work as a psychoanalyst, and is a lecturer on leadership and motivation. He is the author of the bestselling The Art of Captaincy, and has written on cricket and the psychology of sport for the Observer and most recently The Times. He lives in London.