Fatty Batter: How Cricket Saved My Life (then Ruined It) [Paperback]

"an instant classic"

"Once you've read this account of one man's love of cricket,
you'll never want to read another ghosted autobiography by a Pietersen or a
Vaughan again - incompetence and failure is far more fun"

"At last, the work of genius that will finally bring the
long-suffering cricket addict a measure of understanding in the world. A
wonderful and very funny book"

'Wonderfully written - full of wit, gags, self-deprecating asides
and a pure, unfettered understanding of a man's limitations'

'The childhood recollections, suffused with warmth and spangled
with pain and humour, are the book's unique selling point. Lovely stuff'

'Brilliantly witty'

'Almost painfully funny'

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, it tells the hilarious story of one man's life lived through cricket.

A tale of one podgy boy’s dreams on the outside edge of a cricketing life, from the celebrated author of What’s My Motivation?

Michael Simkins was born in Brighton in 1959. In 1966 he managed to watch the football World Cup Final with three West Germans, but then shortly afterwards cricket turned his head. From the well of the sweetshop - with a plastic bat, Jamesons Raspberry Ruffles stumps and Easter Egg Display boundary - began Michael Simkins' love affair with the sound of leather on willow. From an Esso Schools semi-final with the chance of a final at the Oval for the winners to a place in the Gaieties XI in Delhi (with president, Harold Pinter, and an injured leading batsman, Sam Mendes), facing Bishan Bedi, greatest post-war off spinner in world cricket, Michael Simkins has seen it all. As well as suffering from dodgy decisions on the field, he has found himself auditioning for premium rate Cricketcall updates with a recording of himself singing at the age of six, and skived off filming with Martine McCutcheon in a Tesco's car park to watch England's Ashes triumph at the Oval. When he hasn't been playing, watching or dreaming about cricket, Michael has trained at RADA and appeared in more than 70 plays in rep. His stage highlights include A View from the Bridge at the NT as well as musicals Chicago and Mamma Mia. He also directed Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends at the Greenwich Theatre. He has made countless appearances on TV and on the silver screen in such films as Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy. He lives with his wife, actress Julia Deakin, in north-west London, and still plays cricket all over the Southern Counties.