timjones reads around the ICC

I admire everyone in this group who has taken on the challenge of reading around the world, but at the rate I get through books, that would taken me a very long time, even at only one book per country.

So I am setting myself a more modest goal: to read non-fiction about, and preferably from, the ten full member countries of the ICC.

About this time you may be asking (especially if you're from the USA) "what's the ICC"? Well, it's the International Cricket Council, the governing body of world cricket, and its ten full member countries are Australia, Bangladesh, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, the West Indies and Zimbabwe. (The West Indies team represents a grouping of countries, and Zimbabwe is in the naughty corner at the moment, but I'll come back to these points when I get to those places.)

Am I going to subject you to cricket books? No - or at least, not for the most part. What I intend to do is choose a country and then read at least one, but maybe more than one, nonfiction book about it. Where possible, the books will be written by inhabitants of that country.

Although I'm not focusing on cricket books, it was a book about cricket that gave me the idea for this little challenge: A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport, by Ramachandra Guha. It's a superb social history of Indian cricket, and it highlights the reasons that cricket, usually regarded in non-cricketing countries as an English game, is now dominated in economic and to an increasing extent playing terms by India.

India is where I'm going to start my journey, although my first book doesn't meet all my own criteria. It's Father India by Jeffery Paine, and I'll review it soon.

I will be cross-posting my reviews to my Club Read 2009 thread, on which I'm reviewing all the books I complete reading this year - 16 to date:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/52771

As for me, here's the introduction I posted to Club Read 2009:

I'm a 49-year-old writer who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. (As well as writing, I'm also a sustainable energy and climate change activist, and I work part-time on communications and marketing for a web company to pay the bills that writing doesn't.) I've had five books published to date, and have also recently guest-edited a New Zealand literary journal.

If you'd like to find out more about my books and my writing, please check my profile, or see my blog at

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com

I joined LT on Christmas Day, 2007, and have added somewhere between half and two-thirds of my personal library - I plan to add the rest this southern summer. I am a keen borrower from Wellington Public Library, and have only added a small fraction of the books I have borrowed from libraries.

My reading interests tend to be in four areas: (1) science fiction and fantasy - my consuming interest in my teens and twenties, but a smaller part of my reading now; (2) literary fiction, especially but by no means exclusively that which tends towards the surreal or metafictional - I write, and enjoy reading, short stories as well as novels; (3) translated fiction, especially Spanish-language and Russian-language fiction; (4) poetry, mainly New Zealand poetry.

(Now I've added a fifth area of interest!)

A minor technical point - it is England (& Wales) Cricket Board that is a full member of the ICC. Scotland is an Associate Member - and are currently blowing their chance to be at the next (2011) World Cup.

As I said above, I won't go on unduly about cricket, but this post has some more details for those who are interested.

Here is the website of the International Cricket Council:

http://icc-cricket.yahoo.net/

It would take a great deal of effort to explain cricket to those unfamiliar with it, but as a little taster, here's a video which shows Yuvraj Singh of India hitting six sixes in six balls (a.k.a. an over) bowled by Stuart Broad of England - the equivalent of hitting six home runs in baseball in succession:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CorFRXp6EWs

The full members of world cricket are those which play at the topmost level, which is test cricket - the 5-day matches that some people (but not me) find a little slow. The two other main formats are 50 over per side matches, which take about 8 hours to complete, and 20 over per side matches, which take about 3 hours to complete - one over from the 20-over format is shown in the video above.

Internationally, men's cricket is played in seven divisions, of which the ten full member countries form the top division. The next division down, for men, currently includes Afghanistan, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Namibia, the Netherlands, Scotland, and the United Arab Emirates. Whereas all the full member countries are or have been members of the British Commonwealth, the British influence is a bit more subtle in some of the second-tier countries.

In women's cricket, the top tier is the same as for the men, except that Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are not involved at the top level.

#3: You're right, of course, jargoneer - a slip of the keyboard. I am trying to simplify matters on the assumption that most who happen on this thread won't be familiar with cricket, but I should have got that right.

This is a very cool challenge you have set for yourself and I'll enjoy seeing how you progress. I've only ever seen one cricket match and that was in Vancouver. I do wish it would become more popular in the U.S. May your wickets not be sticky, or something like that. ;-)

There's loads of cricketing excitement in Cape Town today as the build-up to the 5-week Indian Premier League gets under way.. it starts on Saturday.

Good luck with your innovative challenge!

Tim,

I don't think it's quite cricket of you to limit your reading in this way ;-)

#6, varielle: If Canada makes it through to the top four in a tournament currently played in South Africa (the ICC World Cup Qualifiers), the Canadian men's team will play in the next Cricket World Cup, which may lead to a bit more publicity for cricket in Canada.

#7, akeela: Indeed! And it's all being covered on Sky TV here in NZ, though even the early games don't start till 10.30pm here. I enjoyed the first edition of the IPL a lot - the final was a great match - and I thought it was an incredible effort to transplant the tournament from India to South Africa in a month. Are you going to any of the games?

#8, urania: Well, reading around the world is a bit like a cricket test - the highest form of the challenge. I'm doing more of a Twenty20 challenge here - but I will still be posting both this and my other reading to Club Read 2009.

Great idea - I'm giggling!
Do you want suggestions? I'm in the middle of a really good Canadian book - The Island Walkers (disclaimer: 300 pages down, 200 to go, and I've had a couple of glasses of wine.)

Edited to fix wine-induced typos and add that I had no idea that Canadians were so good at cricket till I heard that they'd kicked Afghanistan out of the next world cup, or something, yesterday. Apologies to any Canadians (tiffin et al.) out there...

>9 timjones: Yes, well, we're always up for more cricket here! :)

I have a family of cricketing enthusiasts who will be going to the Grand Opening (later today), and some of the games. Tickets, though a tad expensive, were sold out in 2hours...

Me? I'd rather be stealing some time out to plant my nose firmly in a book. But I will be catching some of the games in passing. There's no way I can skip all of it - the twenty20 games are too much fun, and besides, everyone's involved!

Good luck to Canada!

Clever idea, Tim. Sounds like a reasonable goal. I wonder if you will be supplementing your reading by watching movies like the Indian film "Lagaan," where cricket figures into the story and where the sport is almost comprehensible to us non-cricketeers:-)

#10, cmt: Thanks for the suggestion, but according to the rules I've set myself, Canada will either have to get themselves admitted to the ranks of ICC full members, or this book will have to wait until I'm through the full members and onto the associates. Rules are rules (until I change them), after all!

In deference to tiffin, though, I should suggest The Island Walkers to my book group, who have been accused of inadequate Canadian content.

#11, akeela: I agree about Twenty20 - test cricket is still my first love, but I like Twenty20 a lot too. I hope your family enjoys the games!

If your challenge is interrupted by heavy rain, will you only have to read 8 books, by the Lewis/Duckworth method?

For an excellent novel that isn't about but features cricket (and a West Indian's dream of bringing it to NYC), I recommend Netherland by Joseph O'Neill.

#14, depressaholic: Since we're approaching winter here in NZ - although it's a beautiful autumn day today and I should be outside in the garden - rain may well interrupt my reading. I will be carrying around a little chart in my pocket to remind me how many books I will have to read to complete a challenge interrupted by rain at different stages of the challenge.

Weren't Duckworth and Lewis characters in "The Lady Vanishes"?

#15, rebeccanyc: Thanks - I have heard that Netherland is very good and I do want to read it. Incidentally, it got a very good review on Cricinfo!

Before I get on with an actual review, I should let those interested know that Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands and Kenya have secured the four qualifying places in the 2011 Cricket World Cup, joining the ten full member countries who participate as of right. Afghanistan and Scotland, although failing to qualify for the World Cup, have gained the right to play One Day International matches against the top countries.

1. Father India: How Encounters with an Ancient Culture Transformed the Modern West by Jeffery Paine.



Father India is both fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating, because it deals with some extremely interesting people - Annie Besant, E. M. Forster, and Mohandas K. Gandhi among them - and the ways in which their lives and their thought changed in response to 19th- and 20th-century accommodations between India and the West.

Frustrating because covering eight individuals in some depth and many others in less depth in a book of just over 300 pages leads to a great deal of once-over-lightly. I was left wanting to know more, much more, about some of the figures, in particular Annie Besant, who went from militant atheist to apostle of Theososphy, and was even elected President of the Indian National Congress.

On the other hand, Jeffery Paine writes well and his material is fascinating. A book that leaves the reader wanting to know more is no bad thing, so I do recommend Father India for those wanting an introduction to complex interactions between colonial and post-colonial India and the West.

This one will definitely go on my TBR list - it sounds like a great overview.

I'm gutted because the IPL isn't on Sky in the UK, it's on another subscription service and I can't really justify yet more spending on sport channels!

I was in India a couple of months ago and it was lovely to see so much cricket being played - not a football in sight.

#18, charbutton: I gather the IPL in the UK is on something called Setanta - I don't know how Sky have wangled getting it in NZ, but I'm glad they have.

The ironic thing is that the first four IPL matches in Cape Town were played in dodgy weather, whereas I gather you've had two weeks of fine weather in the UK.

Father India is indeed a good, if too-brief, overview. The next book I'm tackling in this particular challenge is The Discovery of India (abridged edition) by Jawaharlal Nehru, then I have a mighty 900-page tome by Ramachandra Guha on the history of India post-1947 on reserve for me at the library. He's such a good writer that I don't think the length will be too daunting.

After that, off to another ICC full member country!

Setanta do own the rights to the IPL in the UK but perhaps not for long - recent murmurings in the business pages have suggested that their finances are not the strongest. They splurged on a few key sports, taking on Sky, but unlike Sky they don't have the platform to make money.

The IPL going to SA had a much to with cricket politics as the weather - India v England as to wields the power in international cricket.

Have you thought about C.L R. James for the West Indies? He was a historian, cultural commentator and cricket fan. His autobiography, Beyond a Boundary, mixes cricket with personal and social history. Naipaul called it one of the best books to come from the West Indies; The Guardian voted it the 3rd best sports book ever.

#20, jargoneer: I agree re the politics, and thanks for the suggestion of Beyond a Boundary.

My latest blog post explores the connection between the IPL and the Forward Poetry Prize, via the poet Tishani Doshi:

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2009/04/ipl-tishani-doshi-and-forward-poetry.h...

2. The Discovery of India (Abridged Edition) by Jawaharlal Nehru.



Jawaharlal Nehru was a leading figure in the Indian independence movement and the first Prime Minister of India. As this book shows, he was also a notable writer and historian. He wrote it while imprisoned with other Congress Party leaders in Ahmadnagar Fort between 1942 and 1946.

Since this is the first history of India I have read, I can't say how it matches up to other such histories, or whether much has changed in understanding of the long history of India since 1946, when this book was published. I can say that it is fascinating, but also frustrating. Nehru provides a brief and roughly chronological history of India, with stress on the continuity of Indian philosophy of millennia, and on India's ability to absorb foreign invaders and foreign ideas - until the British came and imposed an alien political and economic system.

I learnt plenty from The Discovery of India. I had not previously realised that historic India included not only what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also almost all of Afghanistan. I was also unaware of how much contact India had with Greece (beyond Alexander's brief invasion), or with Persia; and how much of South-East Asia had been colonised by India at one time or another.

Nehru breaks off for frequent digressions on matters political, religious and philosophical, which disrupt the narrative but are often fascinating in themselves. These include an appreciative but not hagiographic portrait of Mohandas K Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), and a considerably less positive portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, revered in Pakistan as the Quaid-e-Azam or founder of his nation, sometimes reviled in India as the man chiefly responsible for its bloody partition.

The book ends with World War 2 and the latter stages of the Indian independence movement. As an insight into this period, and into Nehru's political thought, the book is invaluable. I suspect more comprehensive and more objective histories of India may have been written since, but this one is regarded as a classic, and is worth your attention. (3.5/5)

Next - and probably the final book for this Indian leg of the journey - a massive tome that dovetails neatly with the Nehru history: India after Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha. 900 pages of crunchy historical goodness!

But the big literary news for a cricket-lover is this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/apr/30/obama-netherland-reading-f...

A month and a half has passed ... the Deccan Chargers won the Indian Premier League ... Pakistan won the men's World Twenty20 and England the women's (can Clare Taylor bat, or what?) ... the Ashes will be starting soon ... and I have finally finished India after Gandhi!

(BTW, I have decided not to post any more book covers on this thread, as they slow down loading too much on slower connections.)

3. India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha

This is a superb book. In clear, measured prose, Indian polymath Ramachandra Guha (author of other excellent books on topics as diverse as cricket and environmentalism) outlines and explains the complicated political, economic, diplomatic, environmental, military and cultural factors which have transformed the India of 1947, newly independent and riven by Partition, into the India of today. The book is particularly strong on the ways in which democracy has taken root in India. It's long - my edition ran to 771 pages, plus copious notes - but so clearly written that it is not a chore to read. If you are at all interested in India, or in modern history, I highly recommend this book. (5/5)

4. The Temple Down The Road by Brian Matthews.

Every summer, I look forward to the cricket test match that starts on Boxing Day each year at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Brian Matthews' book isn't an official history of the MCG; rather, it's a series of snapshots of famous events at the ground, many of them attended by Matthews himself. Many of the anecdotes are wonderful, but the structure of the book means that it's hard to put them into context.

Despite the ground's name, many Melburnians think of the MCG first and foremost as an Australian Rules Football ground. The heavy focus on Aussie Rules in this book would delight readers interested in the sport, but didn't do much for me.

So, if you're a Melburnian or a big Aussie Rules fan, you should find this book fascinating. For me, it flared into life from time to time, but was somewhat frustrating overall. (3.5/5)