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- Top 20 Sports Book You Should Add to Your Reading List
Top 20 Sports Book You Should Add to Your Reading List
Sports are crucial to our all-round development. From teamwork to sportsman spirit, these competitive games teach us life lessons that will hold us in good stead. Whether you’re an active sportsperson or someone who religiously follows sports, these 20 books should definitely be on your TBR list!
When he picks up the willow, cricket fans across the world hold their breath. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is not just a cricketer, but an inspirer of dreams, a statistician’s delight, and a treat for a cricket connoisseur. This book delves into the life of the milestone man, both on and off the field, through quizzes and a slew of factoids and trivia about him. The questions, encompassing various phases of Sachin’s life and cricketing career, try to unravel the enigma that is the man and gives a chance to his fans to test their knowledge about their idol. Ranging from his childhood to his days as a prodigy, to his baptism by fire in international cricket, to the making of the greatest modern-day cricketer and an iconic brand, the book covers a wide spectrum of interesting information and lesser-known facts about India’s biggest sporting icon.
Bhiwani Junction by Shamya Dasgupta
Vijender Singh’s one bronze medal in Beijing has changed the fortunes of an entire sport in India. At the very least, it dramatically transformed one town: Bhiwani. Or did Bhiwani transform Indian boxing? The nation now knows Bhiwani as being synonymous with the handsome Olympian heartthrob and then some. Boxing is the new sexy, Vijender is the face of it, and Bhiwani is its home. But inspiring as that tale is and considerable though India’s successes in the sport have been since his bronze, the story – as is true of everything in India – is more complex. The sport has a long and meandering history, a Raj connection and a nationalist one, and decades of Indian rule and misrule. There have been many boxing centres in the country, beginning with Calcutta and Mumbai. The state of Manipur has had a long, conflicted history with the sport, as has the Indian Army. Blood, sweat, tears, and a healthy dose of conspiracy: the story of Indian boxing is dramatic, simultaneously dispiriting, and inspiring.
Numbers Do Lie by Impact Index
Impact Index is a revolutionary new way of examining numbers in cricket. It is a deep dive into the very mechanics of the game, which results in the unearthing of truly surprising – sometimes shocking – stories. Within these pages are tales of cricketers who did not get their due, there are analyses of various aspects of the game and an examination of all formats of cricket. Impact Index is an attempt to challenge and enrich conventional readings, and ultimately to redefine it.
Think Like A Champion by Rudi V. Webster
Rudi Webster, a doctor who has done pioneering work in the field of sports psychology, draws up a fail-safe recipe for on-the-ground performance optimization in this remarkable book. He ropes in some of the world’s finest sportsmen to explain their own success techniques: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, V.V.S. Laxman, Clive Lloyd, Dennis Lillee, Wasim Akram, Jacques Kallis, and Sir Garry Sobers. They talk about the four interconnected pillars that performance in sport is built on fitness, technique, strategy, and mental skill – but, unanimously, they declare that the mental pillar is the most important. At the highest level of sport, it is this skill that determines how well the other components are combined and executed.
The Unquiet Ones by Osman Samiuddin
This book is the story of those fortunes and how, in the process, the game transformed from an urban, exclusive sport into a glue uniting millions in a vast, disparate country. In its narration, Osman Samiuddin captures the jazba of the men who played for Pakistan, celebrates their headiest moments and many upheavals, and brings to life some of their most famous – and infamous – contests, tours, and moments. Ambitious, spirited, and often heartbreaking, The Unquiet Ones is a comprehensive portrait of not just a Pakistani sport, but a national majboori, a compulsion whose outcome can often surprise and shock, and become the barometer of everyday life in Pakistan, tailing its ups and downs, its moods and character.
Out of the Blue by Aakash Chopra
When you are Rajasthan, last in the plate division, never having won the title, never even coming close to a final in over three decades, you don’t play to win the honour, you play to save what you can of yours. ‘ Ending up at the very bottom of the Ranji Trophy‘s lower-division shook Rajasthan up. The team staked all it had on the season of 2010-11; it became the player’s one shot at redemption. This is the inspiring true story of the player’s motivation, their passion for cricket, and of a cricket association that changed the rules of how domestic cricketers are groomed in India. Together, they resurrected the Rajasthan team – against all odds. This is the scintillating story of Rajasthan’s first Ranji Trophy win, written by the team’s highly successful opening batsman himself. If Aakash Chopra’s first book, Beyond the Blues laid bare the administrative apathy and corruption that domestic cricket is mired in, this one is a closeup of what it could be.
Anywhere But Home by Anu Vaidyanathan
Anu Vaidyanathan is the first Asian woman to complete Ultraman Canada: a punishing 10-kilometer swim, a 420-kilometer bike ride, and an 84.4-kilometer run. She placed sixth. Which is breath-taking. But what is your typical good Indian girl, super-nerd doing at the Ultraman? Anywhere but Home is the funny, heartbreaking, unexpected story of a woman who would not give up. As she followed her passion on the roads of Bangalore and across several Indian cities, coaches advised her to get married. She was stuck in sports facilities that lacked basic support systems, even toilets. If she wanted to compete, it would need to be on her own salary. All she could rely on were her own two feet and the seat of her bike. With self-deprecatory humor and characteristic curiosity, Vaidyanathan tells the story of how she found a triathlon, how she came to be training in one of the most challenging sports in the world. She writes of her many firsts in the Ultraman, Ironman, Half-Ironman, but also of motherhood and pushing the boundaries of what a body can do. Heart-warming and heart-breaking, this is most of all a tale of love: for a sport and for life.
Beyond The Blues by Aakash Chopra
When Aakash Chopra started to write his diary in September 2007, he had no idea that it was going to be an extraordinary year, both for him personally, and for the game of cricket. It began with a great run in the Ranji, culminating in Delhi’s victory. Delhi also went on to become North Zone champions, the North Zone won the Duleep Trophy, and in almost every game, Aakash was among the runs. He ended the season with 1339 runs from fifteen games, with five centuries that included three double centuries. Then came the IPL, with its glamorous tie-in with Bollywood. And Aakash found himself on the most talked-about side of them all: the Kolkata Knight Riders. A view from within of all that made 2007 such an exciting year for cricketers and cricket lovers, this fast-paced and often tongue-in-cheek account takes us behind the scenes with an honesty and forthrightness uncommon to Indian sport.
This insightful book by former international cricketer Aakash Chopra takes you inside the making and unmaking of cricketers: how they think, how they are likely to react to various match situations, and above all, why they react the way they do. From reading the bowler to gauging the batsman, from playing the bouncer to elding at short-leg, from the technical aspects of the game to the psychological, from the tangible to the abstract, The Insider shuts out the noise and hysteria to allow fans a rare peek into the cricketing brain. This compelling volume is a milestone in writing on cricket.
One Day Cricket: The Indian Challenge by Ashish Ray
A panoramic view of one-day cricket… One-Day Cricket: The Indian Challenge chronicles the limit over the game from an Indian perspective. It traces its origins and covers every World Cup and Champions Trophy tournament and the 1985 Benson & Hedges ‘World Championship’. India’s victory in the 1983 World Cup finds pride of place. Some all-time great one-day internationals (ODIs) are highlighted as well as India’s intense rivalry with Pakistan. The book concludes with a preview of the 2007 World Cup, and also examines Saurav Ganguly’s previously controversial exclusion from the Indian side. An entire chapter is devoted to ‘the turning point for India in ODIs – a win against the then mighty West Indies in March 1983. The work also portrays the bumpy shift in the balance of power in world cricket from Anglo-Saxon control to Indian dominance. This mostly first-hand, anecdotal sweep of over 44 years of one-day cricket, blended with sharp analysis, is also an invaluable statistical guide. And it comes from the commentator who broadcast ball-by-ball on BBC, of India’s meteoric march in the 1983 World Cup.
Cricket Cauldron by Shaharyar Khan
A book that views Pakistan through an unlikely medium: cricket Authors show how understanding the state of cricket in Pakistan is the key to understanding the country itself. Cricket Cauldron tackles the controversies and scandals associated with the game in Pakistan head-on: ball-tampering, spot-fixing, match-fixing, player factions, increasing presence of religion in Pakistani cricket, Bob Woolmer’s mysterious death.
Eye on Cricket by Samir Chopra
In Eye on Cricket, Samir Chopra, a professor of philosophy and a long-time blogger at ESPNcricinfo, offers us a deeply personal take on a game that has entranced him his entire life in several lands he has called home. In these essays, Chopra reflects on a childhood centered on cricket, the many obsessions of fandom, the intersection of the personal and the political, expatriate experiences of cricket, historical regrets and remembrances, and cricket writing and media. Nostalgic, passionate, and meditative, this book is steeped in cricket’s history and its cultural significance and reminds the most devoted spectators of the game that they are not alone. It shows how a game may, by offering a common language of understanding, bring together even those separated by time and space and culture.
Enter the Dangal by Rudraneil Sengupta
Wrestling, kushti, rules the farmlands, as it has for centuries. It had pride of place in the courts of Chalukya kings and Mughal emperors. It was embraced by Hinduism and its epics, and has led its own untroubled revolution against the caste system. The British loved it when they first came to India, then rejected it during the freedom struggle. No, wrestling has never been marginal — even if it is largely ignored in modern-day narratives of sport and culture. From the Great Gama to Sushil Kumar — whose two Olympic medals yanked the kushti out of rural obscurity and on to TV screens — and the many, many pehalwans in between, Enter the Dangal goes behind the scenes to the akharas that quietly defy urbanization. It travels to villages and small towns to meet the intrepid women who fight their way into this ‘manly’ sport. Beyond the indifferent wrestling associations and an impervious media is an old, old sport. Enter the dangal, and you may never leave.
Sellotape Legacy by Boria Majumdar
The Commonwealth Games are Delhi’s biggest sporting event ever. As the promise of hosting them envelops Delhi there are questions that loom large, unasked and ominous: Who will emerge the winner in this contest to present Delhi as a true global city? Will Indian sport gain at all? How much is it costing the person on the street? Who has actually benefited from all the digging and window-dressing? And who has lost livelihoods, dreams, perhaps even lives? This book is the story of the politics of these Games, the money that is being spent and the priorities that have shaped it. With access to hitherto unused archives, including primary documents from the first-ever British Empire Games in 1930, this book is also the first and only attempt to place Delhi 2010 in perspective within the history of the Commonwealth Games, their meaning and indeed the larger question of why we need a Commonwealth at all. Explaining what all this means for India, it provides a unique understanding of the Delhi Games in its entirety.
Olympics The India Story by Boria Majumdar
At a time when historians around the world are increasingly recognizing global stories of Olympism as crucial to understanding the working of societies, there has been no detailed history of India’s Olympic experience. This is a glaring anomaly for a country that became the first colonized nation to join the Olympic movement, one that dazzled the world with its early hockey wins and one whose Olympic history contains within its folds hitherto unknown chapters of the development of Indian nationalism and identity…This monograph is unique because it is built on as yet virgin archive of Indian history. For the first time, we have unlimited access to the hitherto inaccessible ‘official’ archive of the International Olympic Committee at the IOC Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.’
If Cricket is Religion, Sachin is God by Shyam Balasubramanian
With hundred of centuries and over 34,000 runs in international cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, the highest run-getter in both Tests and ODIs, is the God of the religion called cricket. His exploits on the field have brought hope and joy to millions of fans. And yet, like God, he has his set of detractors always willing to remove him from the pedestal. In this revised and updated edition, the authors, who consider themselves fans and analysts in equal measure, follow the career of the cricketing demigod – his advent, his peak, his fall, his resurrection, and, finally, his retirement. They also talk about India’s sensational WC 2011 triumph and Tendulkar’s decision to retire from international cricket. Armed with irrefutable statistical data, which they contextualize and analyze with rigor, the authors seek to end all debate on Tendulkar’s status as the greatest cricketer of the modern era. They compare him with his peers in both forms of the game and provide the viewpoint of experts, players, and commentators so that the reader can independently draw conclusions. And if you still don’t believe that Sachin is God’s gift to the world of cricket, well, God help you!
Champions – How The World Cup Was Won by Suresh Menon
April 2011. After 28 years, the cricket World Cup returned to India when Dhoni’s boys beat Sri Lanka on a day that ended in a shower of champagne and confetti. They had started the tournament as favorites, but in the early stages had appeared shaky. Then came the turning point. India was a more purposeful side in the knockout stage, their fielding and bowling efforts now on par with the batting. Led by their captain cool, India took on Australia in Ahmedabad, Pakistan in Mohali, and then Sri Lanka in Mumbai with a palpable belief in their own ability. It meant they beat all the former champions. Suresh Menon, easily one of India’s best cricket writers, relives the roller-coaster that was the 2011 World Cup, taking us through the highlights, the disappointments, and doubts as well as the triumphs. From Virender Sehwag’s boundary off the first ball of the World Cup to Dhoni’s final six to the transformation of Yuvraj Singh, it’s all here. A running commentary as well as a historical document of one of India’s sporting epics.
Olympics – The India Story by Boria Majumdar
A pioneering and long-awaited book … a delightful read’ -Hindustan Times ‘The first detailed history of India’s Olympic experience … a valuable addition to contemporary knowledge’-India Today When and how did the Olympic movement take root in India? Who were the early players and why did they appropriate Olympic sport to further their political ambitions? In most accounts of Olympic history across the world, India’s Olympic journey is a mere footnote. Olympics: The India Story sets that right. Drawing on previously unused archival sources, it demonstrates that India was an important strategic outpost in the Olympic family. It explores why the Indian elite became obsessed with the Olympic ideal at the turn of the twentieth century and how this relates to India’s quest for a meaningful role on the international stage. First published to critical acclaim in 2008, this revised edition includes a new, incisive chapter on India’s medal prospects at the London Olympics, thus bringing India’s Olympic story up-to-date.
The Ultimate Olympic Quiz Book by Suvam Pal
The Olympics are much more than ‘citius, altius, fortius’ (faster, higher, stronger). They are a canvas on which myriad moments of grit and glory are drawn, and ballads of human endurance, perseverance, comebacks and heartbreaks are writ. The Ultimate Olympic Quiz Book celebrates the indomitable spirit and optimism of the Greatest Show on Earth through quizzes and factoids that encapsulate some of the most fascinating tales of success and failure, and those never-seen-before-or-after moments. From the ancient Olympiads to Coubertin’s modern Games; from the lesser-known facts about the Winter Games to India’s icons and forgotten heroes, this book has all the answers to every question you might have about the Olympics.
Brave New Pitch by Samir Chopra
Cricket as we know it may soon be no more. Thanks to Twenty20, technology, media, and the sheer financial power of Indian cricket, the gentleman’s game is on the brink of radical changes. Nation-based cups might give way to T20 professional leagues; umpires might be replaced by technology; and professional franchises, not national boards, might call the shots. Could cricket go the way of professional football? Will Test cricket survive in an entertainment-driven field? Will television rights deals determine the nature of the game? This upheaval has been accompanied by the conflict between the old guard – England and Australia – and the new boss, India. If the spirit of cricket is to survive these changes, it requires the balancing of economic, political, and sporting imperatives. The game must find a way to remain a financially solvent global sport that caters to the changing tastes of its fans and players by creatively using new media and limited-overs cricket. In Brave New Pitch, Samir Chopra takes a hard look at cricket’s tumultuous presence and considers what could and should lie ahead.
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