There are many cricket books, and they are all the same. 'Don't Tell
Goochie', autobiographical insights of nights on the tiles in Delhi with Lambie
and the boys; 'Fruit cake days', a celebrated humourist recalls 'ball' - related
banter of yore; and Wisden, a deadly weapon when combined with a thermos flask.
Rain Men is different. Like the moment the genius of Richie Benaud first
revealed itself to you, it is a cricketing epiphany, a landmark in the
literature of the game.
Shining the light meter of reason into cricket's incomparable madness, Marcus
Berkmann illuminates all the obsessions and disappointments that the dedicated
fan and pathologically hopeful clubman suffers year after year - the ritual
humiliation of England's middle order, the partially-sighted umpires, the
battling average that reads more like a shoe size. As satisfying as a perfectly
timed cover drive, and rather easier to come by, Rain Men offers essential
justification for anyone who has ever run a team-mate out on purpose or secretly
blubbed at a video of Botham's Ashes.