I have loved cricket all my life and I like a stat (including a bonkers Andy Zaltzman stat) so I expected to love Crickonomics. It is certainly packed with stats and deductions from them, but to be honest I found it rather hard going.
Crickonomics is firmly based on data. As an example, the first section deals with the influence of class in English cricket and why there tend to be more Southern, privately educated batters, but a predominance of Northern, state educated bowlers. It’s an interesting question (as are many of the questions in the book) and the authors produce lots of data to answer it: analyses to check whether it is true and not just a stereotype (it is true) and several tables of data analysing all sorts of things to do with the issue. There is also a decent discussion of the reasons for it, including views from well-informed people in the game. It’s generally well written, too, and other currently important issues get a similar, thoroughly researched, thoughtful treatment, but for me the balance doesn’t quite work, and I found myself rather slogging through data-heavy accounts and trying to remember that this isn’t just a dry statistical exercise, but an important, detailed look at a game I love. I wasn’t always able to remember that, which meant I found the book something of a slog, I’m afraid.
To be fair, this isn’t really a book to be read straight through; taking a section at a time with breaks would probably improve the experience, and it will be of huge interest and help to those analysing the game and proposing to make changes. However, to this general reader and average cricket fan it was less readable and enjoyable than I had hoped.
(My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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