Review
This delighful tome resonates with barely suppressed English passion for the sport of flannelled fools. He manages to cram the outlines of ten novels into a paperback about one village game. --Peter Mackay - The Daily Mail
Amateurs of all ages will feel at home in the bucolic atmosphere on pitch and in pavilion. --Duff Hart-Davis - The Mail on Sunday
Some of the stories are beauties, vignettes of triumph and disaster in which the characters are illuminated with real sharpness. --The Daily Telegraph
Product Description
It is very hard not to find amusement in Richard Hellers A Tale of Ten Wickets-and sometimes a deeper emotion. A fictional but somewhat familiar village, Upton Chesney, prepares with relish for its annual visit from The Frenetics, an aptly named London-based wandering side. Through the visiting scorer (a sort of narrator in the style of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), and a lost travel writer, the reader meets a rich gallery of characters, each with a unique story. Written with gentle irreverence and a nice eye for the eccentric, the book is a delightful read. As the match reaches its nail-biting (of course) conclusion,the result, in the true tradition of the game, becomes less important than the real ending.