Search results for ""author gideon haigh""

Has COVID-19 ushered in the end of the office? Or is it the office’s final triumph? For decades, futurologists have prophesied a boundaryless working world, freed from the cramped confines of the office. During the COVID-19 crisis, employees around the globe got a taste of it. Confined by lockdown to their homes, they met, mingled, collaborated, and created electronically. At length, they returned to something approaching normality. Or had they glimpsed the normal to come? In The Momentous, Uneventful Day, Gideon Haigh reflects on our ambivalent relationship to office work and office life, how we ended up with the offices we have, how they have reflected our best and worst instincts, and how these might be affected by a world in a time of contagion. Like the factory in the nineteenth century, the office was the characteristic building form of the twentieth, reshaping our cities, redirecting our lives. We all have a stake in how it will change in the twenty-first. Enlivened by copious citations from literature, film, memoir, and corporate history, and interspersed with relevant images, The Momentous, Uneventful Day is the ideal companion for a lively current debate about the role offices will play in the future.

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‘The year’s best cricket book’ Daily Telegraph‘Well researched and engagingly written, this exemplary work reveals a hidden history…superbly told story’ Sunday Times‘Easily the cricket book of the year, of the century…It extends the possibility of cricket-writing-as-literature’ Suresh Menon, The Hindu It is arguably the most famous photograph in the history of cricket. In George Beldam's picture, Victor Trumper is caught in mid stroke, the personification of cricketing grace, skill and power, about to hit the ball long and hard. Yet this image, 'Jumping Out', is important not only because of who it depicts, but also what it illustrates about the changing nature of the game and how it has been seen. Now, in Gideon Haigh's brilliant new book, Stroke of Genius, we learn not only about the man in the picture but also the iconography of Trumper's powerful position in cricket's mythology. For many, Australian batsman Trumper was the greatest ever. Neville Cardus wrote: 'I have never yet met a cricketer who, having seen and played with Victor Trumper, did not describe him without doubt or hesitation as the most accomplished of all batsmen of his acquaintance.' Like Lionel Messi or Roger Federer today, he defied the obvious bounds of affiliation. Unlike the current generation of sporting stars, however, there were no memoirs or papers, very few interviews, no action footage - even his date of birth is a matter of debate and conjecture. What isn't in doubt, though, is the impact he had on the game and on his nation. Haigh reveals how Trumper, and 'Jumping Out', helped to change cricket from the Victorian era of static imagery to something much more dynamic, modern and compelling. As such, Trumper helped not only transform cricket but even the way his country viewed itself.

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Nothing compares to the Ashes. The Ashes is always coming, even when it is finished. The Ashes is where hope, expectation, magic and chagrin flourish in equal measure, and performance is permanently burnished.'The best cricket writer in the world' Guardian'The Bradman of cricket writing' Sunday Telegraph'The finest cricket writer alive' The Australian'Australia's finest writer on cricket' The Times'The most gifted cricket essayist of his generation' Richard Williams, GuardianIn On The Ashes, Gideon Haigh, today's pre-eminent cricket writer, has captured over a century and a half of Anglo-Australian cricket, from WG Grace to Don Bradman, from Bodyline to Jim Laker's 19-wicket match, from Ian Botham's miracle at Headingley to the phenomena of Patrick Cummins and Ben Stokes, today's Ashes captains.From over three decades of covering The Ashes, Gideon has brought together an enduring vision of this timeless contest between Australia and England - the world's oldest sporting rivalry - from the colonial era to the present day.

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'A superb portrait of the most brilliant cricketer of his generation' Mike Atherton Shane Warne dominated cricket on the field and off for almost thirty years - his skill, his fame, his personality, his misadventures. His death in March 2002 rocked Australians, even those who could not tell a leg-break from a leg-pull. But what was it like to watch Warne at his long peak, the man of a thousands international wickets, the incarnation of Aussie audacity and cheek? Gideon Haigh saw it all, still can't quite believe it, but wanted to find a way to explain it. In this classic appreciation of Australia's cricket's greatest figure, who doubled as the nation's best-known man, Haigh relieves the highs, the lows, the fun and the follies. The result is a new way of looking at Warne, at sport and at Australia.'Bloody brilliant... As good as anything I have read on the game' Guardian Winner of The Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year

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What is it like to follow the sun as a T20 gun for hire? Dan Christian is one of the world's most sought after cricketers, not only a star for the Sydney Sixers but having been part of teams in premier leagues from India and Pakistan to South Africa and the Caribbean. In The All-Rounder, he takes us on a globe-trotting tour from Karachi to Cardiff, from the billion-dollar Indian Premier League, where he played for Virat Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore, to the inaugural season of England's new franchise competition The Hundred, where he led Manchester Originals. It was a never-ending summer like no other, shadowed by COVID-19, encased in bio-secure bubbles, in which Dan also reflected on his indigenous heritage and grappled with imminent fatherhood, all the while concentrating on a fast-evolving, high-stakes game in which you're a champion one day, a chump the next.

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This July sees the publication of The Great Romantic, a new biography by Duncan Hamilton of the greatest cricket writer of all time, indeed the man who invented modern cricket writing as we know it: Neville Cardus. Cardus was for many years cricket correspondent of the (then Manchester) Guardian, but wrote for a host of other publications including Wisden. Before him, cricket writing meant rather drybones match reports full of statistics and jargon. Cardus wrote about the event: the sylvan ground, the emotion of watching a great batsman like Victor Trumper in full flow. For everyone who wants to sample his finest writings, Safe Haven now publishes a new volume of Cardus's best cricket writings. Here is Cardus on Don Bradman, Victor Trumper, Denis Compton and Richie Benaud, at Roses matches and the arcadian cricket festival at Dover beneath Shakespeare Cliff, seeing the Australians defeated at Eastbourne - and of course at the home of cricket, Lord's. A handsome small hardback with retro cover illustration, here is a book for every lover of fine writing on the Summer Game.

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A great cricket series, as reported by a great cricket writer. High hopes were held for the Ashes of 2023. They were exceeded in an instant classic of five Tests between a bold England and a battling Australia, finally drawn two-all. Ashes 2023 captures all the drama and skill, as well as the controversy over a stumping at Lord’s that followed in the tradition of Bodyline as a clash of cultures and of stereotypes. With a foot in both camps, Gideon Haigh wrote for The Australian in Australia and The Times in the UK. This book mixes his popular match reports with new material to create a priceless memento of an unforgettable series.

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Sultan is the official biography of Wasim Akram, the "sultan of swing", one of the greatest fast bowlers in the history of cricket. For twenty years, Wasim Akram let his cricket do the talking – his electrifying left-arm pace, his explosive left-handed striking, his leadership and his inspiration. For another twenty years he kept his own counsel about those days, full of drama, controversy and even mystery, in a country, Pakistan, that to outsiders is a constant enigma. Until now. Sultan tells the story of cricket’s greatest left-arm bowler, and one of its greatest survivors, who was chosen from the streets of Lahore and groomed by Imran Khan to become champion of the world – man of the match in the final of the 1992 World Cup. Along the way were unforgettable rivalries with the greatest of his time, from Viv Richards and Ian Botham to Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne. Along the way, too, a backdrop of conspiracy and intrigue over ball tampering and match fixing about which Wasim finally sets the story straight. But there’s more: Sultan goes frankly into the crumbling and rebuilding of Wasim’s private life, marred by the tragedy of his first wife’s death and the torment of addiction. The result is an unprecedented insight into the life of a cricketer who revolutionised the game with his speed and swing, and a patriot buoyed and burdened by the expectation of one of the game’s most fanatical publics.

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