Cricket Ball

The cricket ball is the swinging, bouncing, spinning heart of the glorious game that gives it its name. This entertaining, intriguing, informative, accessible and often humorous book – written by a professional philosopher and cricket fanatic – draws on philosophy, science, sports science, history, politics, literature, aesthetics, biography and the myriad facts and figures of the vast cricket universe itself to bring you the full, fascinating story of this legendary leathern orb. What precisely is a cricket ball, what is it made of, how is it made, how has it evolved over the centuries along with the game itself and what is likely to be its multi-coloured future? Meticulously researched, Cricket Ball expertly answers all these questions and many more with a highly readable mixture of deep insight and light hearted humour.

In play the cricket ball ceases to be a mere object and becomes instead a very animated object, the ceaseless, ever changing locus and focus of human action. This book explores the complex, multi-faceted life of the cricket ball in play, as new ball, old ball, live ball, dead ball, no-ball, lost ball, swing ball and dot ball. It gets to grips with some common misconceptions regarding fast bowling and - with a little help from Shane Warne - expertly untangles the mysterious complexities of spin bowling.