In One Ball at a Time, the rhythms of a single day’s play become a guide to living well. From the optimism of Play to the long shadows of Stumps, each chapter draws on cricket’s peculiar wisdom to explore confidence and crisis, love and partnership, grief, renewal and the art of starting again.
Along the way we meet some of the game’s great figures – Grace, Hobbs, Sobers, Botham, Warne, Stokes – alongside writers as various as Cicero, Woolf, Chekhov and Montaigne. Woven through their stories are moments from the author’s own life: childhood matches, lost chances, friendships forged, endings survived.
Cricket becomes not merely a sport but a moral and emotional education: how to wait, how to risk, and how to find the courage to take guard and face the next ball.
Along the way we meet some of the game’s great figures – Grace, Hobbs, Sobers, Botham, Warne, Stokes – alongside writers as various as Cicero, Woolf, Chekhov and Montaigne. Woven through their stories are moments from the author’s own life: childhood matches, lost chances, friendships forged, endings survived.
Cricket becomes not merely a sport but a moral and emotional education: how to wait, how to risk, and how to find the courage to take guard and face the next ball.