The Greatest Since my Time - Trevor Bailey

At the time Trevor Bailey gave up playing first-class cricket, he published THE GREATEST OF MY TIME where he portrayed the finest cricketers he had played with and against, from Donald Bradman to Gary Sobers. Now, twenty years on, THE GREATEST SINCE MY TIME portrays similarly the personalities and performances, the styles and techniques, of the best players of the 1970s and 1980s.

Trevor Bailey is especially sympathetic to the problems facing all-rounders. In one of the most interesting sections of his book he studies five players, arguably the greatest all-rounders of their respective countries: Imran Khan, lan Botham, Mike Procter, Richard Hadlee and Kapil Dev. He is also interested in crucial questions of captaincy and describes different approaches of Tony Greig, Mike Brearley, lan Chappell and, again, Imran Khan in his special relationship to Pakistan cricket.

In the last part of the book Trevor Bailey discusses the changes in cricket over this period – how they have affected the players and the way the game is now organised and played. The limited-overs game, of course, has raised standards of fielding, but not of batting or bowling; is there too much of it, and are there too many Test matches? What is the effect of the new Ibw law, new equipment, sponsorship? Who would make a good selector? Are training methods right? Trevor Bailey covers controversial subjects such as these with the thoughtfulness and thoroughness he always brings to the study of cricketing techniques and which, when he was a player, added cubits to his own stature.