<i>The Following Game</i>: A piece of rare cricket literature
Aditya Iyer reviews Jonathan Smith's book, The Following Game in the Indian Express
Nikita Bastian
25-Feb-2013
Aditya Iyer reviews Jonathan Smith's book, The Following Game in the Indian Express. The book, Iyer says, is rare and sensitive literature in the world of sports books, one that doesn’t revert to scandals and controversies to sell the contents within.
To put it more simply, it is about being a fan, a follower, a hero-worshipper. If you’ve ever surrendered to the magic of just following a game or a team or a player and wondered why it begins to rule your life, then with his divine craft of philosophising the everyday, the author justifies that love, putting mania into perspective with a wonderful personal journey as a man obsessed with cricket, rugby, authors and poets ... Diagnosed with cancer in January 2006, Smith — a Welsh-born professor of literature at Tonbridge School in Kent — sets forth on a journey with son Ed to India, the spiritual home of the game of cricket.
Nikita Bastian is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo