Fire in Babylon

How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet

Simon Lister

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Paperback

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English

Yellow Jersey Press
15 June 2016

Biography: sport; National liberation & independence, post-colonialism; Cricket

WINNER OF THE CRICKET SOCIETY AND MCC BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2016

Fire in Babylon tells the full extraordinary story of the West Indies cricket team that brought the world to its knees and a people to its feet

Inspired by the Stevan Riley film.

WINNER OF THE CRICKET SOCIETY AND MCC BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2016

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD

'I doubt there will be a better book written about this period in West Indies cricket history.'

Clive Lloyd

Cricket had never been played like this. Cricket had never meant so much.

The West Indies had always had brilliant cricketers; it hadn't always had brilliant cricket teams. But in 1974, a man called Clive Lloyd began to lead a side which would at last throw off the shackles that had hindered the region for centuries. Nowhere else had a game been so closely connected to a people's past and their future hopes; nowhere else did cricket liberate a people like it did in the Caribbean.

For almost two decades, Clive Lloyd and then Vivian Richards led the batsmen and bowlers who changed the way cricket was played and changed the way a whole nation - which existed only on a cricket pitch - saw itself.

With their pace like fire and their scorching batting, these sons of cane-cutters and fishermen brought pride to a people which had been stifled by 300 years of slavery, empire and colonialism. Their cricket roused the Caribbean and antagonised the game's traditionalists.

Told by the men who made it happen and the people who watched it unfold, Fire in Babylon is the definitive story of the greatest team that sport has known.

By: Simon Lister
Imprint: Yellow Jersey Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 130mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 269g
ISBN: 9780224092241
ISBN 10: 0224092243
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 15 June 2016
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , General/trade , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Simon Lister is a cricket writer and senior BBC news producer. His first book, Supercat - the authorised biography of Clive Lloyd - was short-listed for the British Sports Book of the Year award. It was, said the Guardian, 'beautifully written'. He has been a contributor to the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack and has covered the county game for the Sunday Telegraph. For ten years, his magazine column, Eyewitness, appeared in The Wisden Cricketer and its successor The Cricketer.

Reviews for Fire in Babylon: How the West Indies Cricket Team Brought a People to its Feet

As near definitive as you could want...expert and knowledgeable -- Danny Kelly * Observer * Calm and fair, but with pace and bounce, the story of the most feared team cricket has ever seen -- Matthew Engel A perceptive and comprehensive account that more than cricket knows -- Gideon Haigh Outstanding... Lister's book works magnificently not just because he tells a great story with unfussy clarity and journalistic rigour but because - like the best sports books - it is not content to stick to sport. -- Richard Whitehead * The Times * I doubt there will be a better book written about this period in West Indies cricket history -- Clive Lloyd