Why cricket is played and watched so passionately in England and around the world.

Scyld Berry sets out with the broad intention of explaining the eternal appeal of playing and watching cricket. With a light touch he succeeds admirably,drawing on his experiences as a leading cricket writer of forty years,and a knowledge of the game that you would expect from an ex-editor of Wisden.

With a wealth of anecdotes Scyld Berry traces the growth of the game,informing us of not just how it all happened, but why it happened,illuminating the reader as to how the game has developed in other parts of the world,highlighting the importance of the Parsis in Mumbai,the hangover from slavery in the West Indies, and the effect of sunshine and space in Australia.

Written with wit and irony, and sometimes passion, the author introduces chapters on the language of cricket, the role of numbers, and on its ethics, aesthetics, psychology and philosophy.

But Scyld Berry does not wear rose-tinted glasses. In a rich chapter on psychology, he addresses the question of stress that has affected England captains from Len Hutton, whom he ghosted, to Alastair Cook, especially on tours of Australia, and the debilitating depression suffered by Marcus Trescothick and others.

It is evident in his writing that cricket has given Scyld Berry as much pleasure in his life as anything else,and he sees the game as a 'vibrant display of colour,spirit,humour and conflict'.

This is a beautifully written and inspiring book that will remind readers why they find cricket so very rewarding.

Scyld Berry's paean to the game from its early days to now is an intensely personal work from one of cricket journalism's most original thinkers, mixing serious historical research with the reveries and theories that have sustained him over a lifetime. A work of love.