According to John Stern, the book is "an assortment of cricket essays, compiled from The Wisden Cricketer magazine’s My Favourite Cricketer series, which has run every month since early 2005. The idea for the feature is sadly not my own but that of my friend and colleague Sambit Bal, the editor of the world's leading cricket website Cricinfo.com, who kicked off the series in the now defunct Wisden Asia Cricket magazine."

Sachin Tendulkar has been paid a rich tribute by Greg Baum, the chief sports writer for The Age in Melbourne."Here is a man incorruptible in the face of the temptations that so many of his peers could not resist. Outside the laws or outside the off stump he could not be lured. Here is a man not susceptible to human failing in any endeavour; a man not so much invincible as invulnerable.

"Here is a man whose name is synonymous with purity, of technique, philosophy and image. If Ian Botham was the Errol Flynn of cricket, or Viv Richards the Martin Luther King, or Shane Warne the Marilyn Monroe, or Muttiah Muralitharan the Hobbit, Tendulkar is surely the game's secular saint."

The top-quality sports journalists and celebrated cricket enthusiasts fondly recall their most admired player past or present, and justify their choice of cricketing hero.

Contributors like Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Gideon Haigh, Duncan Hamilton, Frank Keating, Tony Cozier, and Mark Ray all present the case for their favourite cricketer and explain just what it is that makes them so special.

From Adam Gilchrist to Graham Gooch, Allan Border to Geoff Boycott and Sachin Tendulkar to Fred Trueman, players past and present, famous and not-so-famous, are packed into this paean of praise. Each piece is accompanied by stunning full-colour photography of the player in action.

Derek Pringle, former England Test cricketer and now cricket correspondent of the Daily Telegraph considered Joel Garner as a giant fast bowler possessed of an unerring control of line, length and temperament. His pace was not express, at least not until late in his Test career when they wound him up and gave him the new ball, but he was quick enough to keep the ambition of most batsmen pegged back to somewhere between survival and singles."

My Favourite Cricketer shows the breadth of cricket's enduring appeal and presents a record of the most cherished and larger-than-life characters.


The book deserves to be bought, read and pondered. Beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated, this outstanding publication is a must for collectors of cricket literature.

We are thankful to Naomi Webb, Publicity and Marketing Executive, Sports & Adlard Coles Nautical,A & C Black Publishers Ltd. for sending the review copy for our website.