Crickonomics

The Anatomy of Modern Cricket: Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Sports Book Awards 2023

By: Stefan Szymanski, Tim Wigmore

Narrated by: David Thorpe

Bloomsbury presents Crickonomics by Stefan Szymanski and Tim Wigmore, read by David Thorpe.

SELECTED AS ONE OF WATERSTONES BEST SPORT BOOKS OF 2022.
A CRICKETER BOOK OF THE YEAR.

An engaging tour of the modern game from an award-winning journalist and the economist who co-authored the bestselling Soccernomics.

Why does England rely on private schools for their batters – but not their bowlers? How did demographics shape India’s rise? Why have women often been the game’s great innovators? Why does South Africa struggle to produce Black Test batters? And how does the weather impact who wins?

Crickonomics explores all of this and much more – including how Jayasuriya and Gilchrist transformed Test batting but T20 didn’t; English cricket’s great missed opportunity to have a league structure like football; why batters are paid more than bowlers; how Afghanistan is transforming German cricket; what the rest of the world can learn from New Zealand and even the Barmy Army’s importance to Test cricket.

This incisive book will entertain and surprise all cricket lovers. It might even change how you watch the game.(P)2023 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Critic reviews

Superb (Matthew Syed)

Fascinating

Crickonomics is packed with sufficient statistical analysis to have the most ardent cricket geek purring with pleasure

Provides answers to a range of fascinating questions about the sport (The Daily Telegraph)

An insightful, Hawk-Eye-like analysis of the numbers behind cricket

An illuminating study

A fact-packed and thought-provoking tour through cricket’s highways and byways

A startingly comprehensive insight into the past, present and possible future of this most English of sports.

Part history, part data analysis, part reflection on the sport’s future, Crickonomics is exactly what the title suggests - a diagnosis of the state of professional cricket through the lens of economics.

Taps into meaningful and eternal themes

Pacy and extraordinarily broad

The most engaging and insightful book on the progress of cricket that I have ever read… it is a book which should be of interest not only to cricket enthusiasts, but anyone with an interest in sport.

Wigmore is one of sporting journalism’s most original thinkers.

brilliant research and arguments, backed by conviction one would associate with true experts of the game…a must read.