Remember 2005.
This book had been sitting on the shelf above the bed for a while now. Purchased for £4.99 out of Sussex Stationers a good few years ago, it sat there with an air of “only read it when I have to” about it. Last week, having finished the excellent Robert Millar book (see Seven and Seven Eighths), I decided now was the time to bite the bullet and read another book about a series that will go down in history for the amount of literature it spurned (America’s version is the number of books about the Red Sox World Series win in 2004 – I have most of those too!).
I don’t mind admitting that expectations were low, and that I’d be subjected to a load of old cliched drivel about a series that breathed life into English cricket, but was also the start of the slide from a very temporary peak. In the end, while this was no literature masterpiece, it wasn’t purgatory, and while no book sanctioned by the PCA was ever going to dish the dirt on the players, there was a little more inside information about the individuals own weaknesses than I could have expected. How Vaughan wasn’t quite as captain cool as you thought, how Ashley Giles was plagued with inferiority complexes and anxieties, and how Strauss seemed to be totally at ease with being called Daryll by Drug Cheat.
Sure, the book lapses into drivelled old cliches throughout, and when, early on, it referred to a test as David Graveney’s 100th in charge of selection (Jesus, who would be sad enough to keep count – I feel the hand of the telegenic winner/nowhere to be seen loser at the tiller) my heart sunk. There is lots of hyperbole, lots of players talking up the other players, lots of “magic moments” and “wonderful catches” and “batting like a God”. I loved the bit where KP ignored what the non-striker said to him because he so pumped up by smashing the ball to all parts. I really enjoyed Geraint Jones candour about his keeping mistakes. Ian Bell’s role (a couple of 50s at Old Trafford) is milked for all its worth. He was forgettable. Simon Jones’ memories are utterly poignant. We have really missed him, and it is such a tragedy that he’s been injured.
The good outweighed the bad, which when you are commenting and reporting back on a series that every English cricket lover remembers, is no mean feat. Peter Hayter (who I believe wrote this) can get a little bit too treacly in his writing, but I got through it quick enough which is never a bad sign. Not a masterpiece, but not a waste of time. 3* for me.
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