Cricket Ball

No object encapsulates the subtle, mysterious richness of cricket as much as its most famous character, the cricket ball: the swinging, bouncing, spinning heart of the glorious game.
Gary Cox tells us the life story of the ball in its many guises: new ball, old ball, live ball, dead ball, no-ball, lost ball, swing ball and dot ball. He untangles the complexities of spin bowling (with a little help from Shane Warne), the tricks and cheats involved in ball tampering (including a look at the 2018 Australian scandal) and explores the multi-coloured future of a rapidly changing game.
A kaleidoscopic look at the ball through the lenses of everything from philosophy and science to history, politics and biography and the myriad facts and figures of the vast cricket universe, Cox brings you a brimming biography of this legendary leathern orb and the heroes, fools and villains it has created along the way.

Gary Cox has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham, UK, where he is also an Honorary Research Fellow. He is author of The Sartre Dictionary, Sartre and Fiction, Sartre: A Guide for the Perplexed, How to Be an Existentialist, The Existentialist's Guide, How to Be a Philosopher, The God Confusion, Deep Thought and Existentialism and Excess - all published by Bloomsbury.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents of the Over
First Delivery: Loosener
Animated inanimate object
A regular Mad Hatter's tea party
Watching cricket on the radio
Second Delivery: Cricket Ball Surveyed
Ideal ball
Real ball
Perfect handful
Third Delivery: Cricket Ball Made
What is a cricket ball?
Evolution of the rolling globular body
Coriaceus orbis
Centres of excellence
Fourth Delivery : Cricket Ball Played
Bowling overarm, not underarm or throwing
New ball, old ball, live ball, dead ball, no-ball, lost ball, swing ball, dot ball
Ball tampering
Fast bowling - pace is nothing without control
Length
Line
Bodyline
Spin bowling - the art of confusion
Fielding - the art of attentiveness
Transcendental ball
Fifth Delivery: Cricket Ball Pain
Comedy and tragedy
Pitches, padding and cane handle bats
Death toll
Princes, umpires and pigeons
Sixth Delivery: Cricket Ball Fame
Great players, stats and performances
Botham rises from the ashes
Easeful Atlas
The Gatting Ball
The Strauss Ball
The Laker Ball
The Sobers Six Sixes Ball
Seventh Delivery: Umpire Miscounting
Bibliography
Index