Book Review: Bedtime Tales For Cricket Tragics by Geoff Lemon and Adam Collins

This is an interesting little book, based on the popular The Final Word podcast.

It has a strong Australian bias, given both the authors are from that country, but there are some interesting tales within its 191 pages.

Some of them will be known to you, others less so. Bobby Peel allegedly urinating on the pitch is in here, so too the unrelated Charles Palmer taking advantage of a wet patch. The chapters are short and so it is a good book in which to dip when a few spare minutes become available. I enjoyed reading about the man who *could* have challenged Larwood, Laurie Nash, who sounds a character par excellence, as well as Jack Marsh, an indigenous player from the previous century.

There are tales from the UK, including Harold Heygate's one appearance for Sussex and Glamorgan's Frank Ryan, whose excesses with beer and women made Derbyshire's Bill Bestwick seem a paragon of virtue. He still managed over a thousand career wickets at 21. 

I especially enjoyed the chapter on 'Father' Marriott, whose eleven Test wickets cost only eight runs each and whose 711 first-class wickets exceeded his career runs by well over a hundred. A school teacher, he only played in the holidays, but after surviving both Ypres and the Somme, probably counted himself fortunate to play cricket at all. 

Stylistically, it is written as if listening to a podcast, but in this instance it perhaps adds to the charm. 

It is an entertaining and fairly inexpensive read. 

Bedtime Tales For Cricket Tragics is written by Geoff Lemon and Adam Collins and is published by Fairfield Books