Jarrod Kimber

Five stars for content, one star (or zero) for the quality of the writing (and editing, which seemed to be non-existent). On almost every page there was at least one sentence (or sentence fragment dressed as a sentence) that had to be read multiple times in order to form a reasonable guess as to what the author might be trying to communicate. I came close to throwing the book across the room innumerable times.

Perhaps even more irritating than the confusing sentences was the author's addiction to interspersing a workable sentence with additional full stops and capital letters. I just opened the book at random and my eyes alighted on:
"Now Australia only needed 186. To win the test. To win the series."
Flipping to another page at random, I see:
"It just hadn't been done well. Or consistently. Or been well practiced."

Perhaps the author thinks that sentences of more than a dozen words would exceed the reader's attention span. In any case, in combination with his ambiguous sentences (and sentences that flat-out say something different than what the author evidently intended) this practice makes reading this book bad for the blood pressure.

It's such a pity, because there was plenty of good material in the book. I did make it to the end, but never again will I read anything by this author without checking first to see if it's been subjected to the pencil of a competent editor. (Or, as the author would probably have written it: subjected to the pencil. Of a competent. Editor.)… (mehr)

Funny and ladish (in an Australian style). A good inside story of one man's Ashes. If you have read this man's blog cricketwithballs.com you'll like it. He has an impressive knowledge of the game and gives good criticism of journalistic received wisdoms (eg the pitch in the 5th test).

In an unintentional way it says something about where the next generation of sports journalists are and will come from.

Needed a good editor (a few typos), but I can't blame him for that. I enjoyed this book very much, thanks Jrod.… (mehr)