I must apologise to anyone who has been checking here regularly only to find a lack of updates. The reason for the sporadic entries is that my mum is currently visiting from the homeland, and I have been trying to spend as much quality time with her as possible. Before my mum flew over though, I had asked her to pick up a couple of sporting books that I have been wanting to read for quite some time - one of those being Steve Waugh’s autobiography, “Out of my comfort zone.”

Steve Waugh’s patented ’slog sweep’

Any number of the guys that grew up with me playing cricket, whether it was outdoor, indoor, or in the driveway, would tell you that my idol growing up was Steve Waugh. A brilliant cricket player who struggled early in his career but proved his worth when he returned to the team and later went on to captain the most successful cricket team in history. Steve Waugh was at his best when the odds were stacked against him, and I will always remember the partnership he had with his twin brother, Mark, during which he scored his highest test score of 200 and won the series against the West Indies in 1995.

Steve Waugh at the launch of his autobiography

The autobiography itself is rather lengthy at just over 800 pages. However, the book provides a history and insight into how the game and business of cricket evolved during Steve’s time in the team, and it is an extremely interesting read. In his renowned down-to-earth manner, he writes about relationships within the team dynamic that, up until now, have been kept under close guard. One moment that stands out was during the 2001 Ashes tour when he had to inform former opening batsman, Michael Slater, that he was being dropped from the team. Slater responded with “You can all go and get f..ked” and left the room. As the Australian team always seemed to get a long so well, this was a rare insight into the team dynamics and the pressures that the Captain of the team was presented with.

For any cricket fans out there who have not read this book, I suggest that you do.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 9:46 am and is filed under Cricket. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.