Marc Dawson, thanks to his endless research, has produced a truly magnificent effort with his Outside Edge. An excellent book and worthy of joining a collector's quality library. Pleasantly packaged, it is a veritable mine of information which whets the appetite for further exploration.

I must confess to have been quite stunned at the quality of this work. There is a remarkable wealth of interesting information throughout. With his fascination with facts and figures, Marc Dawson's outstanding book contains some of the most esoteric records. It is impossible not to be impressed by the contents of this book.

Which first-class cricket team contained two players who would later be murdered? Who was the Australian-born Test cricketer who became a cage fighter? Which former England all-rounder set a world record for eating the most peas with a cocktail stick? Which pair of brothers share the most century partnerships in Test match cricket, and who was the bowler who captured Test wickets with consecutive balls, seven years apart? The answers to all these teasers can be found in Marc Dawson's Outside Edge - an irresistible, addictive and routinely astonishing collection of cricketing facts, feats and figures from the game's early days through to the era of One Day Internationals and Twenty20.

The book has twenty interesting chapters. Opening the door on areas such as cricket and politics, cricket and music and cricket and films, royalty and cuisine, the book transcends cricketing trivia. Outside Edge amounts to a wholly original compendium of the most unusual stories from across the whole breadth of the global game's rich history and culture.

Under The Fast and the Slow chapter, we have been informed that Auckland pace bowler Don Cleverley made his Test debut for New Zealand against South Afica in 1931-32, but had to wait for 14 years for his second, and last, Test. With 99 victims in first-class cricket, Cleverley failed to take a wicket in either Test and died at the age of 94 in Queensland in 2004. Further, England's James Anderson had the better of Kumar Sangakkara in Sri Lanka in 2011-12, dismissing the former captain for two first-ball ducks. Sangakkara became just the fourth number three batsman to incur golden ducks in consecutive Tests, but the first to fall to the same bowler.

In a chapter Wielding the Willow, cricket enthusiasts are informed that Australia's Bob Cowper went through the highs and lows of Test cricket in the mid-1960s with two ducks and a triple-century sandwiched in between. Following a second-innings nought against England in the third Test at Sydney in 1965-66, Cowper found redemption with 307 in his next innings at Melbourne. In the next Test - the first against South Africa at Johannesburg in 1966-67 - Cowper suffered another duck and then a second-innings score of one. He became the first Australian to follow a triple-century with a duck in his next innings, and just the second after England's John Edrich.

Geoff Lawson, former Australian Test cricketer, in his foreword, says: "Outside Edge chronicles facts, feats and figures of the wondrous game. Marc compiles, labels and catalogues thousands of cricket factoids, statistics, phenomena, coincidences and opinions. Some seem obvious and logical, others definitely do not. As an avid reader of cricket literature and miner of cricket statistics I found surprises coming thick and fast like a Stieg Larsson plot. Outside Edge is a 'page turner' in every respect. I found myself flipping the next while still halfway through the final sentence on the previous.

"There is absolutely no question that Marc Dawson is well researched, thorough, intense, a finder of cricket nooks and an examiner of cricket's crannies. You can read Outside Edge anywhere, anytime. The interest is a fascination. Clearly Marc needs to get out of the house a bit more. Read this and then loiter around the bookstore for the next instalment."

The production quality of this book is remarkably high. Cricket library has been enriched by the appearance of this substantial book.