The gonzo Ashes

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You might have a few Ashes books on your shelves - an EM Wellings, perhaps, or a CMJ, a Frith, a Haigh. You will almost certainly not have one like this.

Jarrod Kimber is an Australian blogger who followed last year's Ashes as a precursor to his marriage to an English bride. Sometimes he was in front of the television, sometimes in the press box, sometimes in the stands. Wherever he was, Kimber was never short of an opinion.

His writing style was forged on the internet, free of the shackles imposed by fussy sub-editors or cautionary lawyers. He gets quickly and robustly to the point, the page is liberally sprinkled with industrial language, and he sees no need to conform to the niceties and conventions of the embedded press corp.

Perhaps it is the informality of his route to the published page that enables him to deliver some memorably original turns of phrase. The Ashes of 2005 were a "dance-naked-in-the-street and pour-yoghurt-on-yourself event", an expression never used, surely, by EW Swanton.

Kimber is pungent in his criticism of certain individuals - Stuart Broad and Nathan Hauritz among them - but generous to others he values. His tribute to Andrew Flintoff is heartfelt.

He loves to throw in a film reference (perplexing if you have never seen the name-checked movie) and has a laugh at his own expense with his efforts to crack mainstream journalism by trying to get Steve Waugh to comment on an ill-advised remark about Bilal Shafayat on an Aussie website.

The swearing and unconventional opinions should not mask Kimber's two most important qualities - he has a deep and genuine love of cricket and can write with real style. Witness this description of an exhausted Flintoff bowling to Shane Watson at Edgbaston: "Through his pain, though, he still had time to abuse Watson, and when he was storming (limping or crawling) in, Watson backed away causing Freddie to grimace like they were moving a cabinet together and Watson dropped it on his foot."

Kimber can also be good in less-expected areas - his coruscating attack on the boneheaded marketing behind the npower girls fairly blisters the page.

It is far from perfect. There is too much padding at the start, the swearing does pall a little, and there appears to have been a complete absence of proofreading. But it would be a dull world if there were only one form of officially licensed cricket writing.

I'll look forward to reading Kimber back on home soil for 2010-11.

Ashes 2009: When Freddie Became Jesus
by Jarrod Kimber
Pitch Publishing, 288pp, £7.99