If it was raining palaces

After the "Greatest Ashes Series of All Time" comes the follow up: "The Most Anticipated Ashes Series in History". With hyperbole like that it is bound to end in disappointment - and it does, at least for England, who find themselves on the wrong end of a whopping. After chucking in the day job as a sports journalist on "The Times", Nigel Henderson sets off Down Under with a flicker of hope in his heart. However, as carnage in Canberra gives way to agony in Adelaide, mayhem in Melbourne and surrender in Sydney, he finds his love for the game, and his appreciation of it, severely tested. "If It Was Raining Palaces" gives a darkly humorous insight into what it's like to be an England fan witnessing the first Ashes whitewash for 86 years - and perhaps the most poorly-conceived tour in cricket history

Nigel Henderson has a love-hate relationship with cricket; he loves it, it hates him. After a number of middling performances for Surrey Young Cricketers in the early 1980s he was cruelly brushed aside in favour of more talented players and condemned to life in the club game, where countless dubious lbw decisions and the occasional trashed dressing-room later, he found something more constructive to do with his Saturday afternoons. Taking refuge in journalism, he initially worked for several local papers and the Press Association. He has been a freelance writer for Inside Edge, Third Man and The Cricketer and has covered the Wimbledon tennis championships for the BBC. He spent two years as deputy sports editor of the Royal Gazette, Bermuda's daily paper, and currently has a day/night job on the sports desk at The Times.