Full Circle

‘This encyclopaedic journey through the history of the game confirms the romanticism of cricket’s self-anointed purists as completely delusional, if not outright dishonest.’ Fazeer Mohammed, cricket commentator and journalist

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

‘This is a deeply impressive work, a truly global history of cricket, that draws on a wide range of sources and is itself elegantly written. This is both sports history and social history, as Hellner and Oborne analyze the influence of class, gender, race and empire on how cricket has been played in different times and different places. The book is celebratory when required, yet does not shirk from drawing attention to the darker side of cricket (and of some well-known cricketers). Full Circle deserves, and shall surely get, a wide readership among cricket fans all across the globe.’ Ramachandra Guha, author of The Commonwealth of Cricket

‘A remarkable account of cricket’s fascinating journey from its origins, capturing all major events which have shaped the game and its governance, to the present day.’ Ehsan Mani, former President of the ICC

‘Original, informed and beautifully concise, this most readable general history moves beyond tired colonial tropes and conventions to help us understand the dynamic changes the global game has experienced in the past 100 years.’ Professor André Odendaal, author of The Story of an African Game and project co-ordinator of The History of South African Cricket Retold, 1795-2025 series

‘Richard Heller and Peter Oborne are entertaining commentators in this opinionated history of cricket … fascinating.’ James Major, London Standard

‘Richard Heller and Peter Oborne have set themselves the challenging task of covering the whole of the sport’s history in 400 pages … The authors have risen to the task impressively in their handsomely researched work that places cricket in its wider political context.’ Country Life

A ‘reliable, comprehensive and readable guide to the history of the game.’ The Cricketer

‘Heller and Oborne tell cricket’s history with great skill, spicing the narrative with wonderful vignettes … Cricket cannot avoid today’s vast and relentless social changes, but it needs to learn from other sports that have successfully adapted without losing their fundamental principles.’ New Statesman

‘Extremely readable.’ The Cricket Statistician

Richard Heller was a long-serving columnist on the Mail on Sunday and then The Times, and is the author of two cricket novels. A strong devotee of Pakistani cricket, he and Oborne are the co-authors of White On Green (2016) and during lockdown launched the popular podcast, Oborne & Heller On Cricket.

Peter Oborne is an award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster. His biography of Basil D’Oliveira won the William Hill Prize in 2004. His book on Pakistani cricket, Wounded Tiger, was Wisden’s book of the year in 2014. His political writing includes The Rise of Political Lying (2005) and the Sunday Times bestseller The Assault on Truth (2021). He has worked for newspapers including the Spectator, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, and he now writes for Open Democracy and Middle East Eye.

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