Full Circle - A History of Cricket with Richard Heller & Peter Oborne

When Peter Oborne and Richard Heller started their podcast Oborne and Heller on Cricket they found they were never short of subjects to talk about - the history of the game, its culture, its global reach, its politics. Both prolific journalists with numerous books to their names, the soon realised there was a book in it.

Full Circle is the result.

‘An encyclopaedic journey through the history of the game.’ - Fazeer Mohammed, cricket commentator and journalist

‘A proper, meaty history, independent in perspective, global in its sweep and trenchant in its judgements.’ Gideon Haigh

In its early forms in the 18th century, cricket was a commercial entertainment, a vehicle for gambling alongside cock-fighting or wrestling. In the Victorian era, the sport was recreated as a means of keeping order in England’s public schools and increasingly allied with ideas of virtue and manliness. Exported by empire loyalists, cricket took root across the globe – thriving in some countries, indelibly linked with racism and colonialism in others.

From Australia to the Caribbean to Afghanistan, Oborne and Heller explore cricket’s expansion and its later role in decolonisation, education and politics. They argue that in recent years the game – dominated by the wealth and scale of franchise cricket – has come full circle, less a sport than a commercial enterprise once more. In consequence, they believe it is in crisis. As big money has taken over the game, is cricket losing its integrity and meaning?

Come and hear them talk at the book launch at The Chiswick Calendar's Media Club on Wednesday 13 May at 7.30pm in the Boston Room of George IV pub in Chiswick.

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