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Non-fiction reviews: The Comeback Season and three other titles
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Non-fiction reviews: The Comeback Season and three other titles
By Steven Carroll
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After the ball-tampering disaster in South Africa Steve Smith spent a year in the wilderness. Geoff Lemon’s superb dissection of the year and the stunning Ashes comeback that followed weaves in the story of English all-rounder Ben Stokes, himself disgraced after being involved in a violent brawl outside a Bristol nightclub. Both had a point to prove. Lemon knows his subject and his cricket, but what distinguishes this analysis is the quality of the writing, especially the way he is alive to the lyric potential of the game. Sometimes the digressions, as in the Dreamland of sacred sites – Trent Bridge, Old Trafford et al, “None of it real. Incantations, not places”⁣ – make the most rewarding reading. All the same, his descriptions of Smith in legend-making action are top shelf. Like the best of cricket writing, it’s about more than cricket.

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