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Ashes 2011: England's Record-breaking Series Victory
Most people gave England a modest chance of success. Some, like Glenn McGrath, insisted that history would repeat itself and Australia would administer another 5-0 whitewash. What no one anticipated was that the 2010-11 Ashes Tests would see one of the most complete performances ever by an England touring side, the first Ashes victory on Australian soil for 24 years, with, uniquely, three innings victories. It was a series, indeed a tour, full of remarkable records, from the bats of Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott, and the ball of James Anderson and Graham Swann. Every member of the side made crucial contributions—even those like Chris Tremlett and Tim Bresnan who had not originally been first choices for the Tests. Now, Gideon Haigh, "one of the best living writers on cricket" ( Daily Telegraph ), tells the full story of this amazing sporting achievement. Beginning with the build-up to the series—Australia going into it on the back of an uncharacteristic losing run, England after a year of quietly solid consolidation—he covers each Test, day by day, in pithy match reports and elegant analyses. Ashes 2011 is the perfect way to re-live a memorable sporting triumph.
- GenresNonfictionJournalism
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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About the author
Gideon Haigh
101 books113 followersGideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh (born 29 December 1965) is an English-born Australian journalist, who writes about sport (especially cricket) and business. He was born in London, raised in Geelong, and now lives in Melbourne.
Haigh began his career as a journalist, writing on business for The Age newspaper from 1984 to 1992 and for The Australian from 1993 to 1995. He has since contributed to over 70 newspapers and magazines,[2] both on business topics as well as on sport, mostly cricket. He wrote regularly for The Guardian during the 2006-07 Ashes series and has featured also in The Times and the Financial Times.
Haigh has authored 19 books and edited seven more. Of those on a cricketing theme, his historical works includes The Cricket War and Summer Game, his biographies The Big Ship (of Warwick Armstrong) and Mystery Spinner (of Jack Iverson), the latter pronounced The Cricket Society's "Book of the Year", short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and dubbed "a classic" by The Sunday Times;[3] anthologies of his writings Ashes 2005 and Game for Anything, as well as Many a Slip, the humorous diary of a club cricket season, and The Vincibles, his story of the South Yarra Cricket Club, of which he is life member and perennate vice-president and for whose newsletter he has written about cricket the longest. He has also published several books on business-related topics, such as The Battle for BHP, Asbestos House (which dilates the James Hardie asbestos controversy) and Bad Company, an examination of the CEO phenomenon. He mostly publishes with Aurum Press.
Haigh was appointed editor of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia for 1999–2000 and 2000–01. Since March 2006, he has been a regular panellist on the ABC television sports panel show Offsiders. He was also a regular co-host on The Conversation Hour with Jon Faine on 774 ABC Melbourne until near the end of 2006.
Haigh has been known to be critical of what he regards as the deification of Sir Donald Bradman and "the cynical exploitation of his name by the mediocre and the greedy".[4] He did so in a September 1998 article in Wisden Cricket Monthly, entitled "Sir Donald Brandname". Haigh has been critical of Bradman's biographer Roland Perry, writing in The Australian that Perry's biography was guilty of "glossing over or ignoring anything to Bradman's discredit".[4]
Haigh won the John Curtin Prize for Journalism in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2006[5] for his essay "Information Idol: How Google is making us stupid",[6] which was published in The Monthly magazine. He asserted that the quality of discourse could suffer as a source of information's worth is judged by Google according to its previous degree of exposure to the status quo. He believes the pool of information available to those using Google as their sole avenue of inquiry is inevitably limited and possibly compromised due to covert commercial influences.
He blogged on the 2009 Ashes series for The Wisden Cricketer.[7]
On 24 October 2012 he addressed the tenth Bradman Oration in Melbourne.
Haigh began his career as a journalist, writing on business for The Age newspaper from 1984 to 1992 and for The Australian from 1993 to 1995. He has since contributed to over 70 newspapers and magazines,[2] both on business topics as well as on sport, mostly cricket. He wrote regularly for The Guardian during the 2006-07 Ashes series and has featured also in The Times and the Financial Times.
Haigh has authored 19 books and edited seven more. Of those on a cricketing theme, his historical works includes The Cricket War and Summer Game, his biographies The Big Ship (of Warwick Armstrong) and Mystery Spinner (of Jack Iverson), the latter pronounced The Cricket Society's "Book of the Year", short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and dubbed "a classic" by The Sunday Times;[3] anthologies of his writings Ashes 2005 and Game for Anything, as well as Many a Slip, the humorous diary of a club cricket season, and The Vincibles, his story of the South Yarra Cricket Club, of which he is life member and perennate vice-president and for whose newsletter he has written about cricket the longest. He has also published several books on business-related topics, such as The Battle for BHP, Asbestos House (which dilates the James Hardie asbestos controversy) and Bad Company, an examination of the CEO phenomenon. He mostly publishes with Aurum Press.
Haigh was appointed editor of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia for 1999–2000 and 2000–01. Since March 2006, he has been a regular panellist on the ABC television sports panel show Offsiders. He was also a regular co-host on The Conversation Hour with Jon Faine on 774 ABC Melbourne until near the end of 2006.
Haigh has been known to be critical of what he regards as the deification of Sir Donald Bradman and "the cynical exploitation of his name by the mediocre and the greedy".[4] He did so in a September 1998 article in Wisden Cricket Monthly, entitled "Sir Donald Brandname". Haigh has been critical of Bradman's biographer Roland Perry, writing in The Australian that Perry's biography was guilty of "glossing over or ignoring anything to Bradman's discredit".[4]
Haigh won the John Curtin Prize for Journalism in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2006[5] for his essay "Information Idol: How Google is making us stupid",[6] which was published in The Monthly magazine. He asserted that the quality of discourse could suffer as a source of information's worth is judged by Google according to its previous degree of exposure to the status quo. He believes the pool of information available to those using Google as their sole avenue of inquiry is inevitably limited and possibly compromised due to covert commercial influences.
He blogged on the 2009 Ashes series for The Wisden Cricketer.[7]
On 24 October 2012 he addressed the tenth Bradman Oration in Melbourne.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 16, 2015
A collection of articles and reports by the excellent Australian journalist that were written as the series unfolded and not amended or edited with the benefit of hindsight.
Haigh is a superb, characterful writer and a hard working one too as is proved by this collection.
In preparation for the series and each day’s play there is an introductory article and following the close of play there is a factual update of the events of the day. In addition, Haigh also writes up a piece of context and reportage at the end of each day.
Despite his warning to readers that no errors have been corrected and that the articles should be seen as warts and all Haigh proves to be extremely perceptive in identifying the England Team’s strengths and the Australian Team’s weaknesses in the lead up to the series. His reporting on the state of the Australian game and the evident decline following the retirement of the many greats of the recent era; Waughs, Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist, Langer & Hayden gave a great insight into the troubles they are experiencing.
It was, of course, a pleasure to read again of England’s superb performances particularly in the day to day format as a reminder of the growing delight and realization of the scale of England’s success. An enjoyable book, an excellent writer, it would be good to see his work back in the Guardian.
Haigh is a superb, characterful writer and a hard working one too as is proved by this collection.
In preparation for the series and each day’s play there is an introductory article and following the close of play there is a factual update of the events of the day. In addition, Haigh also writes up a piece of context and reportage at the end of each day.
Despite his warning to readers that no errors have been corrected and that the articles should be seen as warts and all Haigh proves to be extremely perceptive in identifying the England Team’s strengths and the Australian Team’s weaknesses in the lead up to the series. His reporting on the state of the Australian game and the evident decline following the retirement of the many greats of the recent era; Waughs, Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist, Langer & Hayden gave a great insight into the troubles they are experiencing.
It was, of course, a pleasure to read again of England’s superb performances particularly in the day to day format as a reminder of the growing delight and realization of the scale of England’s success. An enjoyable book, an excellent writer, it would be good to see his work back in the Guardian.
May 7, 2018
As a record of a sporting series it does the job as well as any. The cover tells you the outcome in case you'd forgotten or had just landed from outer space. But for a game as full of stats as cricket is the author tells us all the stats we need to know without drowning us in tedious figures that distract from the flow and the story.
He has a nice turn of phrase and is analytical but not to the detriment of readability. We get the odd anecdote to add colour to the data and plenty of data, but at no time does the book stop telling a story.
Well done Gideon Haigh!
He has a nice turn of phrase and is analytical but not to the detriment of readability. We get the odd anecdote to add colour to the data and plenty of data, but at no time does the book stop telling a story.
Well done Gideon Haigh!
August 7, 2017
Haigh is a great writer, but this compilation of his press articles fails to build any tension or excitement.
April 24, 2015
A really enjoyable opportunity to relive what was probably the peak of the recent successful period for English cricket. Reading it in 2015 after the debacle of the World Cup and last year's 5-0 drubbing by Australia it was very ironic to read the section titled "A Bad Day at the Office" (Dec 30th) where Mr Haigh applies to the Australians all the criticisms that have been applied to the current England team. How quickly things turn around in professional sport. Perhaps we need to be more circumspect about trying to identity reasons or apportion blame when a (weak?) team loses.
July 26, 2016
Good cricket writing and an honest, unbiased Australian perspective on an Ashes series that was pretty harrowing for the home side. Gideon Haigh both reports on the action day by day but makes timely observations on the main characters in the series without excessive hyperbole. His writing brings the series to life. Really enjoyable to read to bring back memories of great times for England.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews