Cricket XXXX Cricket

Who can forget Frances Edmonds' explosive cricketing diaries of the 1980s? After the runaway success of Another Bloody Tour, Frances Edmonds returned to terrorise the England cricket team in 1987, heading to Australia to join husband Phil for three and a half months Down Under. While watching England retain the Ashes, and one or two other incidental one-day competitions, she once again lifted the lid on all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans in her inimitable and wickedly irreverent style. Against the decidedly unpromising backcloth of the disastrous defeat in the West Indies the previous year, this time the England team managed to pull themselves up by their boot-straps and turn their fortunes around. The tour of Australia was an unmitigated triumph. This was a very different story: there was fun, focus and good fellowship. And her account of it is outrageous, funny, perceptive and honest: Frances Edmonds at her best. But now, nearly thirty years on, updated with a new Introduction, this diary is more than a rollicking good read (which it is): on this tour we see in embryonic form the burgeoning phenomenon of the celebrity superstar player, which has gradually morphed into its now far more toxic iteration: the unchecked super-ego. And the game of cricket has of course changed in numerous other ways - the rise of mega-money, along with the changing character of the gentleman's game; and the continuous on-tour presence of WAGs, families, and an entourage that would make Cleopatra blush. Nothing less than sensational, Cricket XXXX Cricket continues to reveal as much about cricketing life off the field as on it.

Frances Edmonds is an international bestselling author. Her first book, Another Bloody Tour (an outrageously funny and highly controversial account of the England cricket team's tour of the West Indies, published in 1986) created uproar in sporting circle. Her subsequent non-fiction titles cover sport, politics, marketing, self-help and motivation. Her internationally published works of fiction have all met with outstanding critical acclaim. After graduating with a Masters Degree in Modern Languages from Cambridge University, Frances joined the Commission of the European Union in Brussels as an international conference interpreter. For over a decade, she worked to facilitate communication and cooperation within all the major international organisations and between the heads of state and government at their annual World Economic Summits. Her years spent negotiating at the highest level fostered her expertise in cross-cultural communication and consensus creation. She specialises in working with multinational and multi-cultural organisations as both a keynote speaker and moderator. An inspirational, humorous and engaging presenter, Frances has also been voted Britain's most entertaining female after-dinner speaker in a recent survey by The Times. Frances's understanding of business issues, gleaned from her own experience in creating a specialised construction company, led to her election as an Honorary Fellow of the British Association of Women Entrepreneurs. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Founder Member and Fellow of the Professional Speakers Association.