CONSOLATION...

I`ve got quite a collection of books about cricket. I won`t list them all here but they include the collected works of John Arlott; Ronald Mason`s `Ashes in the Mouth,` which chronicles the 1932-33 Bodyline series; David Foot`s excellent biography of Harold Gimblett; histories of Hampshire, Somerset and Glamorgan; numerous Wisdens including Benny Green`s Wisden Anthologies and David Frith`s `Silence of the Heart,` which details the alarming number of cricketers who have died by their own hand. You get the picture - I love the game, always have , always will, but not just for the game itself. For it also provides a rich heritage of literature which in its depth and quality is unsurpassed by any other sport.

Last week, I spent a lost couple of hours in Waterstones bookshop in Bluewater. Amongst the kind gifts I received for my 70th birthday was a generous Waterstones voucher and I searched the shop for something I would really enjoy. I tried all the sections - fiction, travel, history, humour and then sport. The shelves were pretty much stacked with books about football, mainly it seemed the `autobiographies` of assorted poseurs whose lives have little to commend them unless one is impressed by shallow excess. Golf was well represented and also rugby, but it was the stock of cricket books that held my attention. And there were a lot to choose from. I boiled it down to two - Duncan Hamilton`s authorised biography of Harold Larwood and Stephen Chalke`s `The Way it Was` - `glimpses of English cricket`s past.` I couldn`t decide between the two, so I used my voucher for one and put my hand in my own pocket for the other.

Now earlier this afternoon, England were comprehensively stuffed by Australia in the fourth Ashes Test of the current series. Never mind, for the series is nicely poised at 1-1. There is still one final Test to be played and anything can happen at the Oval. (That`s the spirit.) But whatever happens, there will always be the consolation of the richness of cricket literature, where one can look back on triumphs and disasters, characters and personalites, genius and mediocrity all in equal proportion. And all written with a love and feeling for a game which is not just a game, but more a way of life. Especially if you`re English and you`ve just been stuffed. Again.