Ewart Astill (1888-1948) was not only an outstanding all-rounder who amassed more than 2,000 wickets and very nearly 20,000 runs over a 30-year career with his native county, Leicestershire; he was also a person of thorough honesty, decency, kindness, cheerfulness, determination and loyalty. Only four players scored more career runs for Leicestershire and none took more wickets. One of only two county cricketers to have appeared in the Championship in every season between the Wars, Astill played a record 628 first-class matches for his county and achieved the ‘double’ of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in a season on no fewer than nine occasions. To the Leicestershire faithful he was the youngster of enormous promise and then the evergreen post-war veteran, who even more than his colleague George Geary shouldered the burden of their county’s bowling, and often their batting too, with a smiling chivalry and unwearied dedication that embedded him deep in their affections. One of nine first-class cricketers to have achieved the 20,000 runs/2,000 wicket ‘double’, his meagre total of only nine caps for England – all abroad – was probably more a reflection of Leicestershire’s perceived status as an ‘unfashionable’ county, than Astill’s playing ability. Off the field, Astill was a hugely popular figure who was a champion billiards player, a fine musician and an accomplished vocalist. He was frequently invited by leading representative teams to tour overseas and was seemingly the ‘life and soul of the party’ during off-field activities. Fred Root called him ‘the most versatile cricketer’ he had ever known and David Frith’s opinion was that ‘Of the stalwarts who served their countries for almost a lifetime Ewart Astill of Leicestershire has an exalted place’; but for Leicestershire supporters he was simply the best-loved of all their heroes.

To understand modern India, one must look at the business of cricket within the country. When Lalit Modi--an Indian businessman with a criminal record, a history of failed business ventures, and a reputation for audacious deal making--created a Twenty20 cricket league in India in 2008, the odds were stacked against him. International cricket was still controlled from London, where they played the long, slow game of Test cricket by the old rules. Indians had traditionally underperformed in the sport but the game remained a national passion. Adopting the highly commercial American model of sporting tournaments, and throwing scantily clad western cheerleaders into the mix, Modi gave himself three months to succeed. And succeed he did--dazzlingly--before he and his league crashed to earth amid astonishing scandal and corruption. The emergence of the IPL is a remarkable tale. Cricket is at the heart of the miracle that is modern India. As a business, it represents everything that is most dynamic and entrepreneurial about the country's economic boom, including the industrious and aspiring middle-class consumers who are driving it. The IPL also reveals, perhaps to an unprecedented degree, the corrupt, back-scratching, and nepotistic way in which India is run. A truly original work by a brilliant journalist, The Great Tamasha* makes the complexity of modern India--its aspiration and optimism straining against tradition and corruption--accessible like no other book has. *Tamasha: a Hindi world meaning "a spectacle."

One of Woolf's most experimental novels, The Waves presents six characters in monologue - from morning until night, from childhood into old age - against a background of the sea. The result is a glorious chorus of voices that exists not to remark on the passing of events but to celebrate the connection between its various individual parts.

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