New book: Ken Piesse’s ABC of Australian Cricket

It must be cricket season again as the prolific local author Ken Piesse has a new Christmas gift offering, Ken Piesse’s ABC of Australian Cricket.

Ken Piesse with his new Christmas gift offering, ABC of Australian Cricket.

It must be cricket season again as the prolific local author Ken Piesse has a new Christmas gift offering, Ken Piesse’s ABC of Australian Cricket.

Full of quirky anecdotes and happenings at all levels from Tests to Tootgarook, Piesse is launching his 86th book at Robinson’s Bookshop in Frankston on Saturday, November 5 from 11am.

It includes a foreword by Scott Boland, who became an overnight Ashes hero with his fairytale six for 7 on debut last Christmas.

Australian cricket’s unrivalled, master storyteller, Piesse’s entertaining and unique 208-page ‘ABC’ touches cricket at all levels and includes:

* The boy who saved Shane Warne from drowning;

* The noted stone-waller who played boogie-woogie piano:

* The Test paceman who bowled in bloomers;

* The 73-year-old who played first-grade;

* And the farmer run out for 99 after his artificial leg fell off.

Piesse’s passion for cricket started as a boy, accompanying his dad to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for all major matches: Sheffield Shield, tour matches and Tests.

“I’d score the games ball-by-ball,’’ he said.

“One Christmas my dad bought me the 1965 Wisden and I memorised most of it, page by page...I borrowed all 18 cricket books from our local library at Parkdale in Melbourne and sat them in a new bookcase I’d made at woodwork class, imagining they were all mine.’’