Would W.G. Grace recognise the game of cricket today?
There’s a fascinating thought that the authors of Full Circle pursue for just a couple of pages, then leave hanging: ‘Association football offers an alternative history by which to consider the course cricket might have taken.’ In fact, the book demonstrates that cricket has followed football’s course, albeit about a century late. In cricket, too, professionals ousted amateurs, embraced the market, saw economic power shift east and chose a short format that allowed games to be played in an evening. Like it or loathe it, cricket has effectively become football. Reading this serious and competent work, you wonder at times why the journalists Richard Heller and Peter Oborne bothered to write it. There are already countless cricket histories.
