There has been a lot written on the 1932/33 Ashes (cricket) series between Australia and England, popularly known as the "Bodyline" series thanks to the English captain Douglas Jardine's decision to use short pitched face bowling as a tactic to unsettle Australia's champion batsman Don Bradman. Writing about it as fiction is a novel idea (pardon the terrible pun) but ultimately "Bodyline: the novel" is a middling affair and one would advise parties interested in Bodyline to read the non-fiction accounts instead.

"Bodyline" does have its pleasures though; characters are fleshed out more than you would usually find in non-fiction cricket tomes and the time passes easily enough when reading it. And I can confidently state that "Bodyline" is still my favourite cricket fiction. ( )