The Ball Hit My Bat: Cricket in the Slow Lane

The Ball Hit My Bat traces the author’s chequered cricket career, from humble beginnings by the outside toilet wall at his Lancashire primary school, to equally humble endings with Walking Cricket in the Yorkshire Dales. Overcoming failure to get in any school XI, Peter acknowledges the 29 teams which somehow did pick him - including unexpected selection for Australia. He captained Settle Optimists as they meandered through villages in northern fells and dales, encountering airborne tea huts, 20% gradients, patchwork pitches, loose-bowelled cattle and spontaneous local rules. Yes, you can be caught off a telegraph wire in Wigglesworth. The Ball Hit My Bat also shows how anyone can become a first-class cricketer by using special tactics - and Peter is convinced he helped Geoff Boycott back into the England team after the great batsman had been controversially dropped. As well as a revelation from Herbert Sutcliffe’s grandson, there is a sobering reflection on the death toll of cricketers in the Great War, with a tribute to a fallen Settle player who never made it into Wisden. And, long believing himself an illegitimate cricketer with no heritage, Peter was stunned to find his pioneering grandma played over a century ago. Above all, this is a richly entertaining journey along cricket’s slow lane, in the company of a writer with a deep love of the game. SOLD IN AID OF YORKSHIRE AIR AMBULANCE