Last Review of 2014: Douglas Jardine: Spartan Cricketer

I wanted to write a lengthy review of Christopher Douglas' biography of England's toughest cricket captain: Douglas Jardine. Unfortunately, it seems right now I'll just manage to write a few lines. For those who follow cricket, Jardine needs no introduction. He was given the unenviable task of bringing back at the Ashes at a time …

Top Ten (+ 3) Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted @ The Broke and the Bookish. Every week one can submit a list of 10 books on a predecided topic. This week the hosts have asked us to list the books one wants to read but doesn't own yet.Right now, the 1932-33 Ashes series between England and …

Short Reviews: Prison and Chocolate Cake, and Forty Years of Test Cricket: India-England

Recently, I completed two books related to India (and England).The first one, Prison and Chocolate Cake, is a memoir by Nayantara Sahgal, chronicling her young days growing up during the Raj. As niece of independent India's first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru and daughter of India's first ambassador to the U.N., Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nayantara …

‘Bodyline’: Once Again

 Cricket is a religion in India and cricket-lovers are not merely fans but rather fanatics. And thus it is but natural that when a serial based on a cricket-series was telecast way back in the late eighties, it should become immensely popular. Bodyline, the serial, was a dramatic (some would say over-dramatic) representation of the …