Gideon Haigh on Shane Warne is an irresistible pairing: 'the finest cricket writer alive' (The Australian) on the greatest cricketer of our times. The resulting masterpiece is as much about our fascination with Warnie as it is about the player himself.

Who doesn't know the name Shane Warne?

Now that the Australian cricketer who dominated airwaves and headlines for twenty years has turned full-time celebrity and media event, his sporting conquests and controversies are receding steadily into the past.

But what was it like to watch Warne at his long peak, the man of a thousand international wickets, the incarnation of Australian audacity and cheek? Our leading cricket writer, Gideon Haigh, lived and loved the Warne era, when the impossible was everyday, and the sensational every other day.

In On Warne, he relives the era's highs, its lows, its fun and its follies. Drawing on interviews conducted with Warne over the course of a decade, and two decades of watching him play, Haigh assesses this greatest of sportsmen as cricketer, character, comrade, newsmaker and national figure – a natural in an increasingly regimented time, a simplifier in a growingly complicated world. The result is one of the finest cricket books ever written, a whole new way of looking at its subject, at sport, and at Australia.

One day, you might be asked what cricket in the time of Warne was like. On Warne is the definitive account.

Glorious Summers and Discontents: Looking back on the ups and downs from a dramatic decade – Mike Atherton – 2012

In this fascinating book, Mike Atherton selects the best pieces he has written over the last decade. Renowned as a shrewd and resolute captain of England, Atherton moved effortlessly into the commentary box and Fleet Street, proving himself every bit as capable with the pen as with the bat.

It has been a dramatic period, seeing the rise of Twenty20 cricket and the IPL, as well as the revival of England's prospects, breaking a long era of Australian dominance in the Ashes. There has also been controversy, too, with terrorist attacks, Zimbabwe and allegations of Pakistani spot-fixing all distracting fans from the essence of the game. Through it all, Atherton comments with the true insight of one who has been there, the humane understanding of someone who has genuine empathy for the issues involved and, above all, his opinions are based on a deep love for the game and sport in general. His writing has become essential reading for all sports fans. This book shows exactly why that is the case.

Wisden on the Ashes – edited by Steven Lynch – 2015

Wisden on the Ashes: The authoritative story of cricket's greatest rivalry is a detailed chronological journey through the history of this famous English-Australian contest. With Test reports, scorecards, "Great bowlers of the year" and other fascinating material from the archives, together with new editorial pieces, this is a remarkable record of cricket's most enduring battle.

The book begins its journey with England's first tour of Australia in 1876 and the subsequent three series prior to the 1882 tour that led to a mock obituary being placed in the Sporting Times "In affectionate remembrance of English cricket, which died at The Oval on 29th August, 1882. ... The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia." Celebrating the players who made their mark on the game and the controversies that shook the sport, the book covers every series since then through to the most recent series. In 2005 England won a highly competitive series that helped raise the popularity of the sport, and each series since then has attracted huge attention.

This book will be a welcome addition to all cricket enthusiasts' collections, as well as an ideal gift purchase.

This updated edition includes both 2013 series, which saw England retain the Ashes on home soil before Australia won all five tests in the second series later that year, and the summer 2015 series held in England. It also includes a colour photo section celebrating the players, the matches and the key moments from an ongoing rivalry.

Battle for the Ashes – David Frith – 2005

The 2005 Ashes series sensationally turned a sleeping nation back into an army of cricket fanatics - with tens of thousands locked out of every Test and cricket trumping even Premiership football for back page prominence. As England's young hopefuls - Flintoff, Pietersen et al - took on an Australian team of Ponting and Warne that most pundits regarded as the finest team the world had ever seen, could this become the year that England (the only unbeaten Test team in the world in 2004) reverse its losing run of eight consecutive Ashes losses? This is the blow-by-blow account of what has already been hailed as the greatest ever Ashes as recounted by one of cricket's greatest writers. Win, lose or draw the series has already been a victory for pure sporting excellence and heroic sportsmanship and contains some incredible once-in-a-lifetime encounters that will never be forgotten.

500-1: The Miracle of Headingley '81 – Rob Steen – 2010

No season exerts a grip on the hearts of English cricket followers quite like the summer of 1981. For the first time in a generation, the whole country was transfixed by a Test series. What made it all the more remarkable was that the fortunes of the national team, not to mention those of the game in general and the country itself, seemed at rock bottom.

During the course of an Ashes series that shifted from the mundane to the fantastical with breathtaking speed, the third Test at Headingley proved to be the turning-point. Amid record unemployment and the worst outbreak of civil unrest in a century, England, 500-1 against at one stage (odds taken by two members of the Australian team), achieved the most improbable sporting triumph of the 20th century, mounting a dramatic comeback to beat Australia by 18 runs. The names of Ian Botham, Bob Willis and Mike Brearley duly became forever entwined with what readers of the Observer recently voted 'Most Memorable Sporting Moment'.

500-1 recreates the match with the aid of those who were there - players, officials, groundstaff, spectators and media - while placing events in their full context, tracing a timeless tale in rich, vivid and unprecedented detail.

As the thirtieth anniversary approaches, 500-1: The Miracle of Headingley has been fully updated to reflect the impact that Test had on the game and those who watched it, at a time of struggle in both the game and society as a whole.

Boycott: The Autobiography - Geoffrey Boycott – 1987

'Misguided, mishandled, criticised and crucified - and only because he's different, ' said Brian Clough. 'The ultimate perfectionist ... he comes nearer to faultlessness than anyone else, ' said John Arlott. Captain of Yorkshire and England, yet discarded by both when still at his peak, Boycott was at the top for over twenty years. Here he tells his own story.

He talks of his love-hate relationship with Yorkshire cricket, his many triumphs for England and his key partnerships with team-mates like Denness, Brearley and Botham. And he speaks for the first time about why he chose to opt out of Test cricket for three years in the mid-1970s.

Many felt that Boycott was the greatest batsman of his time, and that, despite his achievements, he was unfairly treated. Known by a new generation as a pull-no-punches commentator, this is the story of one of our greatest, and most controversial, sporting heroes.

The Best XI – Geoffrey Boycott – 2009

Who'd make it into the best England team ever? And you can chose anyone, regardless of when they might have played. Would W.G. Grace be playing alongside Denis Compton and David Gower? Or Kevin Pietersen? The debate could be endless, so who better to make the selection than Geoffrey Boycott, himself one of England's all-time highest scoring Test batsmen and now the game's most forthright, shrewd and iconoclastic commentator. Based on his own fresh analysis amd interpretation of the statistics, Boycs has come up with his own, sometimes surprising Best Eleven of all time. And he's not just cast a critical eye over England's finest either. Every other test-playing nation comes under the spotlight. You may not agree - in fact, you're almost certain not to - but each player has been carefully chosen and the case for his inclusion forcefully argued in what is sure to be the most entertaining, thought-provoking and memorable cricket books of the year from one of the game's most outspoken and enduring characters.

The Top 100 Cricketers of All Time – Christopher Martin-Jenkins – 2010

With every cricket season that passes the roll-call of great players gets longer. Batsmen, bowlers, fielders, wicket-keepers, captains, characters. Every year more international cricket is played by more countries, making the task of ranking the best of them harder than it has ever been. And how do you compare a dazzling Twenty20 specialist of the modern era with a champion of the age before Test cricket officially started in 1877? Some years after the last of his highly regarded books was published, Christopher Martin-Jenkins has accepted the challenge of selecting the 100 best players of all time, one that he has called 'impossible but irresistible'. Placing them in order of precedence, he has analysed each of them, assessing their characters, the cricketing elements that made them so outstanding and the special qualities that enabled them to be pre-eminent in their time. Whether Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Kevin Pietersen, Brett Lee, Muttiah Muralitharan and Jacques Kallis, heroes of the contemporary game, will make a list that includes immortal cricketers such as W.G. Grace, Don Bradman and Gary Sobers, will be as fascinating as where they may be rated in the pantheon. Having written and commentated on international cricket for 40 years, Martin-Jenkins is almost uniquely qualified to act as judge and jury.

The Times One Hundred Greatest Cricketers - John Woodcock – 1998

Compile a book claiming to contain "the greatest" of anything and you are bound to run into problems. Do it with cricket and you are asking for trouble--everyone will disagree with at least one of your entries and chide you for perceived omissions.

But John Woodcock, Times writer and cricket correspondent for more than 50 years, is among the best qualified to undertake such a task. And an admirable job he made of it in The Times One Hundred Greatest Cricketers.

Opening the innings with a name few would argue with--W G Grace--Woodcock goes through many other of the greatest names the sport has ever seen--Don Bradman, Garfield Sobers, Len Hutton, Shane Warne, Viv Richards, Ian Botham--and includes cricketing greats past and the present.

In addition to a one-page potted history of the player's career, each entry has a black- and-white picture to accompany it. A statistical index (accurate until March/April 1998) completes the information, giving the kind of figures cricket fans love--batting averages, highest scores, number of wickets etc. An introduction explains the thinking behind the choices and a foreword by former England captain Mike Brearley is a perfect starting place.

A great book for cricket fanatics, this will also appeal to the more casual fan. Accessible, well-written and interesting, it will certainly provoke debate, whether you agree with the entries or not.

The Art of Captaincy – Mike Brearley – 1985

A classic work republished to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the momentous Ashes series of 1981 when Mike Brearley led England to victory.

In cricket, the role of the captain has been consistently under-rated in recent years. In time where statistics are the fashion, the performance of batsmen and bowlers can readily be presented in terms of averages whereas the contribution of the captain is, by contrast, harder to assess. But in cricket more than any other sport the role of the leader is crucial. In this book, Mike Brearley considers the role of captain both on the cricket field, and more broadly, applying the principles of sport captaincy to more general leadership debates. One of the first sportsmen to make the link between success in sport and in other areas of our work and personal lives, Brearley has made a lasting contribution to the wider debate. Mike Brearley is considered one of England's finest captains ever, whose methods and approach still have resonance today. Nasser Hussein has a captaincy style both admired by and likened to Brearley.

As It Was: The Memoirs – Fred Trueman – 2004

Freddie Trueman is one of the world`s great sporting legends. The fastest bowler of his - and indeed subsequent - generations, Trueman is still today one of our best-loved cricketers. This riveting autobiography is his story, from his Yorkshire boyhood in the Depression to international cricketing glory. It`s packed with gloriously funny and refreshingly blunt tales of the life of the junior professional in a 1950s English county cricket team, of lugging the entire team`s kit from match to match when a journey across country could easily take a whole day, to Test glory in the 1960s both at home and abroad. It takes in the commentary box, Test Match Special, Johnners and Bloers and chocolate cake and, finally, Trueman`s trenchant views on today`s international cricket circus: throwing vs bowling, the media frenzy surrounding top sportsmen and women and the nature of modern cricket.

The Picador Book Of Cricket – Edited by Ramachandra Guha – 2002

The definitive anthology of cricket writing

A tribute to the finest writers on the game of cricket and an acknowledgement that the great days of cricket literature are behind us. There was a time when major English writers P. G. Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alec Waugh took time off to write about cricket, whereas the cricket book market today is dominated by ghosted autobiographies and statistical compendiums. The Picador Book of Cricket celebrates the best writing on the game and includes many pieces that have been out of print, or difficult to get hold of, for years. Including Neville Cardus, C. L. R. James, John Arlott, V. S. Naipaul, and C. B. Fry, this anthology is a must for any cricket follower or anyone interested in sports writing elevated to high art.

Cricket, Lovely Cricket? : An Addict's Guide to the World's Most Exasperating Game – Lawrence Booth – 2008

Cricket, Lovely Cricket is a journey around the perennially curious world of cricket, leaving no metaphorical leg-break unturned and peering at the game from every conceivable angle. Here, Lawrence Booth, who had little option but to turn a youthful obsession with the game into a means of paying the mortgage, seeks to consider the questions that crop up on a daily basis but rarely receive a satisfactory answer. What are the players really like? What is the secret of sledging? Why get so worked up about the Ashes? Why all the clichés? And how did India take over the world?

Taking the reader to the heart of a game that seems more capable than any other of bewitching its followers, this is a captivating look at the way cricket has become what it is today - and what, given a fair wind, it might be like in the future.

Rain Men: The Madness of Cricket – Marcus Berkmann – 1996

There are many cricket books, and they are all the same. 'Don't Tell Goochie', autobiographical insights of nights on the tiles in Delhi with Lambie and the boys; 'Fruit cake days', a celebrated humourist recalls 'ball' - related banter of yore; and Wisden, a deadly weapon when combined with a thermos flask. Rain Men is different. Like the moment the genius of Richie Benaud first revealed itself to you, it is a cricketing epiphany, a landmark in the literature of the game.

Shining the light meter of reason into cricket's incomparable madness, Marcus Berkmann illuminates all the obsessions and disappointments that the dedicated fan and pathologically hopeful clubman suffers year after year - the ritual humiliation of England's middle order, the partially-sighted umpires, the battling average that reads more like a shoe size. As satisfying as a perfectly timed cover drive, and rather easier to come by, Rain Men offers essential justification for anyone who has ever run a team-mate out on purpose or secretly blubbed at a video of Botham's Ashes.

Zimmer Men: The Trials and Tribulations of the Ageing Cricketer – Marcus Berkmann – 2006

Ten years after his classic Rain Men — 'cricket's answer to Fever Pitch,' said the Daily Telegraph — Marcus Berkmann returns to the strange and wondrous world of village cricket, where players sledge their teammates, umpires struggle to count up to six, the bails aren't on straight and the team that field after a hefty tea invariably loses. This time he's on the trail of the Ageing Cricketer, having suddenly realised that he is one himself and playing in a team with ten others every weekend. In their minds they run around the field as fast as ever; it's only their legs that let them down. Zimmer Men asks all the important questions of middle-aged cricketers. Why is that boundary rope suddenly so far away? Are you doomed to getting worse as a cricketer, or could you get better? How many pairs of trousers will your girth destroy in one summer? Chronicling the 2004 season, with its many humiliating defeats and random injuries, this coruscatingly funny new book laughs in the face of middle age, and starts seriously thinking about buying a motorbike.

Fatty Batter: How cricket saved my life (then ruined it) – Michael Simkins – 2008

A fat boy with a passion for sweets and a loathing for games, the young Michael Simkins finds in cricket a sport where size doesn't necessarily matter and a full-blown obsession is born. Now in middle-age, he still harbours the somewhat deluded belief that the England middle-order might usefully benefit from his hard-earned skills. From impromptu Test series played with his dad in the family sweetshop through to his years running a team of dysfunctional inadequates, Fatty Batter is the bestselling and hilarious story of one man's life lived through cricket.

The Last Flannelled Fool: My small part in English cricket's demise and its large part in mine - Michael Simkins – 2011

Michael Simkins is the ultimate Sunday cricketer - passionate, obsessive, technically inept, and hopelessly deluded. When an injury rules him out of an entire season, not only might it spell the end of his long career, he is faced more immediately with a summer aimlessly wandering garden centres and listening to The Archers.

He decides instead to set off on an odyssey across the counties of England in search of that golden time in his youth when his passion for the game was fi rst kindled. It's a journey that begins in May in light drizzle at the birthplace of cricket, takes in the burial site of his favourite ground (now a Marks & Spencer) and even stops along the way to flirt with the love child of WG Grace and Kerry Katona that is Twenty20. It ends with the ultimate cricketing zenith - returning to the fi eld of play to bowl an over to Freddie Flintoff in fading light in front of a capacity crowd. So can cricket still bring comfort and meaning to his life or is Old Father Time about to call for Michael's bails?

Cricket Lexicon – David Woodhouse – 2006

What do Australians mean when they talk of mollygrubbers or sandshoe-crushers?

What are Manhattans and Wagon Wheels doing in the most English of sports?

How do you tell flypaper hands from popadom fingers?

Cricket - perhaps more than any other sport - has a language that delights those who know it, and confuses those who don't. While some of us have never actually heard the sound of leather on willow, everybody has heard of bowling a googly and playing a straight bat. But few know what terms like doosra and dobber mean, and how to use them like a connoisseur.

From Kennington to Kensington, from Melbourne to Mumbai, talk of cricket (on and off the field) is both well-mannered and bluntly offensive, confusing and crystal-clear, old-world and cutting-edge. To ease the way through these corridors of uncertainty, Leigh & Woodhouse invite you to join them on tour - so next time you talk about the game, you will be giving it some humpty.

The Spirit of Cricket - Christopher Martin-Jenkins – 2005

‘This splendid anthology will be enjoyed by both players and watchers, but perhaps appeal even more to the largest class of all, the dreamers and fantasists, those sadly inferior players who become in imagination Bothams and Gowers hooking Curtley Ambrose in the stands . The dreamers will find plenty to feed on here.' - Evening Standard (UK)

This richly entertaining anthology conveys the sweep of cricket's evolution from W. G. Grace to Shane Warne, from the sport's origins in the Weald to the contemporary professional (and increasingly commercial) game. There are sections on 'A Boy's Game', 'England v Australia' and 'Champions and Characters', and contributions from such luminaries as C. L. R. James and Mike Brearley, Neville Cardus and E. W. Swanton, Stephen Fry and Edmund Blunden.

Cricket has inspired more writing, in terms of both volume and quality, than any other sport. A romantic game of skill, patience and heroic deeds, cricket is also a tough duel between batsman and bowler, unique because the team battle is dependent on the sum of individual struggles.

Hobbsy: A Life in Cricket – Rob Kelly - 2018

In the late Sixties and early Seventies the Essex circus, led by Brian ‘Tonker’ Taylor and featuring three spinners, was, for cricket fans, as bewildering and beguiling as its contemporaries Sergeant Pepper and Monty Python.

At the heart of it all, both on and off the field, was Robin Hobbs. His fun-loving personality, brilliant fielding and leg-spin skill made him one of the great characters on the county circuit. He could (but wouldn’t) lay claim to being the second best leg-break bowler in the world through most of his career. The fact that he only played seven Tests says much about English pitches and a general mistrust of his bowling art.

Hobbs played cricket in four continents, took over 1000 first-class wickets, scored a 44-minute century against Australia and generally brought far more into the game than he took out of it. Dodging riots in Pakistan, driving Geoff Boycott to distraction or clubbing with Princess Margaret in the West Indies – he was the perfect tourist, always willing to do what was necessary with a smile and a joke.

Through extensive conversations with the man himself and many of his fellow players of the time, Hobbsy – A Life in Cricket is an evocation of a time gone by where the one-day game was a bright young thing and the County Championship was still king. There are tales aplenty from seasons in Essex, Suffolk, Glamorgan and the brief foray into the international arena where Hobbs had the unenviable distinction of playing one Test match without ever getting onto the field.

Tom Smith's Cricket Umpiring and Scoring: Laws of Cricket – Tom Smith - 2011

Tom Smith first wrote his guide for umpires and scorers in 1980. Since then, his indispensable guide has gone through six fully-revised editions. The 'new' Tom Smith is the first to be fully redesigned and updated for the 21st century. Its publication coincides with international recognition that there should be one universal standard for the training of umpires whatever country they operate in.

The 'new' Tom Smith incorporates the full 2000 Code of the Laws of Cricket with subsequent amendments as ratified by the MCC and international and national cricket bodies. The freshly drawn diagrams are easy to follow and will be of value not only to umpires and scorers, but to all lovers of the game of cricket.

As Richie Benaud, the great Australian cricketer and commentator, has said, he never goes without his copy of 'Tom Smith'. Nor should any spectator who wishes to feel fully qualified in discussing the application of the Laws of Cricket to the game.

David Lloyd says, 'Tom Smith is just as valuable a piece of kit as Hawkeye, Snicko and Hotspot in the Sky Sports commentary box, its interpretation of the Laws of the game is the first thing we turn to regarding decisions. it's a "must-have" alongside the Laws of cricket.'

Wisden The Laws of Cricket – Don Oslear

Wisden: The Laws of Cricket sets out in full the text of the new laws of cricket, 42 in number. For each law it provides a commentary, covering the reasons for any changes, explaining the background, and highlighting how they are likely to affect the way the game is played at every level.

The Wisden Book of Cricket Heroes: Batsmen – Alan Lee – 1989

Directed at young cricketers, this fully illustrated book provides an insight into the backgrounds and characters of 12 outstanding contemporary batsmen, describing their feats on the field and their particular technical strengths. It includes a statistical section on career records.

The Wisden Book of Cricket Heroes: Bowlers – Alan Lee – 1989

Directed at young cricketers, this volume provides an insight into the backgrounds and characters of 12 outstanding contemporary bowlers, such as Imran Khan and Ian Botham. The text describes their feats on the field and technical strengths, and includes a statistical section on career records.

Classic Cricket Clangers - David Mortimer – 2003

This volume is an amusing collection of accounts of cricket players who have thrown away victory for all kinds of embarassing and highly regrettable reasons. It covers two centuries of cricket.

Greatest Moments in Cricket - R. G. Grant – 1991

This book is a fascinating catalogue of some of the sport's finest moments and most exciting contests. It traces some of the most memorable Test matches highlighting team and individual achievements. Beginning with the earliest Ashes clashes between England and Australia in the latter half of the nineteenth century, it encompasses remarkable Tests such as the timeless match between England and Australia in which England declared with a score of 903; the tied test between Australia and the West Indies in 1960, and the spectacular contest between Pakistan and England in 1982.

Peter May's Book of Cricket - Peter May – 1956

Thoughts and views on all aspects of cricket including insights into how he works out his own game.

Behind the Australian Tests – Norman Cutler – 1956

Australian Summer: England's tour of Australia 1936-37 - Neville Cardus – 1937

The Fight for the Ashes 1953 – Peter West – 1953

A Yankee Looks at Cricket - Henry Sayen – 1956

Famous Cricketers of Essex – Dean Hayes – 1991

The Young Cricketers Companion - Learie Constantine- 1965

Who's Who In World Cricket – Roy Webber – 1952

P.G.H.Fender -  Richard Streeton – 1987

Daily Telegraph Cricket Year Book 1989 – Michael Melford – 1989

A Cricket Eleven: An Anthology of Cricket Short Stories with Verses – Gerald Howe – 1927

Cricket Country – Edmund Blunden – 1944

Time For Reflection - Colin Cowdrey – 1963

CRICKET – M.D.Lyon – 1933

Championship Cricket a Review of County Cricket Since 1945 - Trevor Bailey - 1962