Cricket's greatest characters - Geoff Tibballs

From the Grace brothers via Denis Compton, Keith Miller and Fred Trueman to Shane Warne, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, cricket has produced a stream of memorable characters over the past 150 years.

"Cricket's Greatest Characters" chronicles the exploits of around seventy-five of the game's most potent personalities - comedians, disciplinarians and hellraisers alike. The fascinating compendium will feature illuminating profiles of larger than life Test stars including Ian Botham, Phil Tufnell, Sid Barnes, Merv Hughes, Jack Russell, Viv Richards, Bobby Peel, Colin Milburn, Inzamam-ul-Haq, George Gunn, Dennis Lillee and Derek Randall.

However the contents are by no means confined to players of world renown, for there will also be portraits of county stalwarts such as Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, who led Hampshire to the 1961 championship title on a diet of 'wine, women and song' and who once persuaded an umpire to take a transistor radio on to the pitch so he could listen to a horse race while he was fielding; Ray East, the clown prince of Essex; Somerset's Arthur Wellard who, fielding at silly mid-off, would remove his false teeth in order to unsettle the batsman; Gluocestershire spinner 'Bomber' Wells, a man, who, according to Michael Parkinson, had 'a summer's day in his face and laughter in his soul'; and Bill Bestwick, Derbyshire's demon fast bowler with a fondness for the bottle.