This book has been updated for the Ashes 2009, featuring revised information on new players, the Indian premier league, Stanford 20:20 and the latest coverage of past and future competitions.
Julian Knight is a BBC journalist, writer, and cricket enthusiast. He is a former youth coach and captain, and has been a club cricketer for over 20 years.
Consultant Editor Gary Palmer played first class cricket for ten years with Somerset before becoming a professional coach.
Gary Palmer played first-class cricket as an all-rounder with Somerset for ten years. He has since developed a successful career as a cricket coach and holds the English Cricket Board’s Level III coaching qualification. He has taught other coaches as part of the ECB Coaching Team and has also been involved with delivering the Centre of Excellence programme to Regional and National Youth Squads. During the winter of 1995/6 he worked in South Africa at the Eastern Province Cricket Academy as Head Coach, and since then his top-class coaching experience has included working with the Australian Test team in 2001, the India Test team in 2002, and the Sri Lanka Touring team in 2002. He established the CricketCoachMaster Academy in 2003, with the aim of providing boys aged between 15 and 19 who want to become professional cricketers with a cricketing experience in a first-class environment. Gary currently works as a specialist batting coach for Gloucestershire County Cricket Club.