My Most Memorable Matches - Don Mosey, Fred Trueman

One of the greatest fast bowlers of all time, Fred Trueman has been totally absorbed in cricket from the moment in childhood when he was introduced to it by his father right through to his 51st year when he joyously accepted an invitation to captain an Old England XI on Sundays during the 1981 season.

‘He was not merely a fast bowler,’ wrote John Arlott. ‘He was a fast bowler in the mind and in the heart.’ Trueman took 2304 first-class wickets, including a record 307 in Tests during 20 seasons of bowling – the embodiment of hostility. Fred Trueman bowled fast for longer than anyone has ever done at the top level of cricket and one can count on the fingers of one hand the number of games he missed through injury. Trueman was in face unique.

Throughout his cricketing career, Fiery Fred’s sharp and retentive mind has stored up a treasure house of memories of cricket at all levels. Mention a match – be it a Text in the Caribbean sunshine or a club game in the drizzling shadow of the colliery slag-heaps in his beloved native South Yorkshire – and F S Trueman, with total recall, will detail the event not simply in mundane statistic but with colourfully graphic phraseology.

In this delightful book, he relives his most memorable matches ranging from village green and country house cricket to historic matches on the great Test grounds of the world. He remembers them with the picturesque terminology and salty black humour which were his established trade marks throughout his career.

This highly entertaining volume on a sport which has suddenly found its feet again, will be welcomed by all cricket lovers.