Since 1877, when Australia took on England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Test cricket has been the ultimate arena for the finest players to show off their talents.
Ground Rules: A Celebration of Test Cricket looks at 13 of the world's greatest Test-match venues and plots the chart that has made them such an inspiration to players of all nationalities.
David Gower, the former England captain, sets the scene with his foreword and Barney Spender, the editor, explains the attraction of the cricket ground as a sporting theatre. Australia's most successful captain ever, Steve Waugh looks at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia while the Indian captain Sourav Ganguly offers a personal view of the grounds in Kolkata and Chennai and discusses India's famous wins there against the Australians in 2000-01.
Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara sizes up the legacy of the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo whilst Andy Flower, driven out of Zimbabwe after the 2003 World Cup for his much-publicised political statement, explains how the Harare Sports Club lost its charm during those frantic few weeks.
The eminent cricket broadcasters and writers Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Donna Symmonds, Peter Robinson, Richard Boock, Qamar Ahmed and Richard Hobson track the development of Lord's, The Oval, the Kensington Oval in Barbados, Newlands, the Basin Reserve, the National Stadium in Karachi and the Bangabandhu Stadium in Dhaka.
In a special appendix provided by Wisden/CricInfo, Ground Rules also contains an extensive reference section that includes the scorecard of every Test played at each of the 13 grounds featured here.
Ground Rules is the ultimate celebration of cricket, tapping into every cricketer's passion of the game and the grounds on which it is played. There are stunning and rare images from some of the world's best photographers together with original insights from some of the legendary names in Cricket.
The grounds covered include:
Lord's
The Oval
Melbourne Cricket Ground
Sydney Cricket Ground
Eden Gardens, Kolkata
Chidambera, Chennai
Newlands, Cape Town
Kensington Oval, Barbados
Basin Reserve, Wellington
National Stadium, Karachi
Harare Sports Club
Sinhalese Sports Club, Colombo
Bangabandhu Stadium, Dhaka.
Each of the chapters brings to life the scene at the Test ground describing the personal experiences of the great players, their performances and the most memorable matches.
