New Delhi, July 17 -- A line cricket fans and writers love to quote is Trinidadian historian and Marxist scholar C.L.R. James' "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?"

James meant that in order to properly appreciate the game of cricket, one has to consider the historical and sociopolitical conditions under which the game is played. No contemporary writer proves this dictum more often or more thoroughly than the 59-year-old Australian Gideon Haigh, author of some of the finest cricket books of the 21st century, including The Big Ship: Warwick Armstrong and the Making of Modern Cricket (2001), Mystery Spinner: The Life and Death of an Extraordinary Cricketer (2002), On Warne (2012) and Sultan: A Memoir (2022, co-written with...