Andrew Nickolds (1949–2022)

This is a collection of columns written for "The Guardian" between 1997 and 2001 by doughty stalwart of county cricket, bits and pieces specialist Dave Podmore. He is assisted in this by his ghost writers and creators, Christopher Douglas and Andrew Nickolds, with cartoon contributions from Private Eye regular Nick Newman. The columns are collected into arenas, thus there is "The New Ian Botham Arena" and "The Sexual Politics Arena", for example.

Inevitably, one of the problems with reading this now is only the geekiest of cricket followers (i.e. me) will remember some of this issues, such as the abandoned Test against the West Indies due to an unsafe pitch or that England sunk to the bottom of the international rankings in 1999, to see what Pod is getting at.

Much is made of Pod's focus on the associated benefits of his profession, to which he gives at least 110% at all times. Not least of these is benefits themselves, but also sponsored cars, fancy dress parties on tour, after dinner speaking, corporate hospitality and his Academy of Cricketing Excellence. Outside of cricket, Pod loves his dogs and the latest Jacqui he has married (all his wives have had this name but with different spellings).

Blissfully unaware of his pomposity - he frequently refers to himself in the third person - and how reactionary his views are, Dave is essentially the Alan Partridge of cricket, although not nearly as funny. These are lightweights bits of fluff that padded out bulky weekend newspapers, not especially worthy of posthumous collection. Unsurprising that this is out of print.… (meer)