Menace: The Autobiography by Dennis Lillee

Glenn McGrath remembers nearly every one of his 425 Test wickets. Dennis Lillee, in the first of umpteen interviews to flog his new autobiography, claimed he could recall only "three or four". It explains, in part, why McGrath is viewed as a slightly colourless machine and Lillee, all sweat and gold necklaces and green-and-yellow headbands, as the knockabout demon of a more relaxed age. It also explains, alas, why his book is a turkey.

Lillee was a once-a-century bowler, with a fierce snarl, exquisite action and rugged, distinctly sexual, charisma. His legend lives on today. He has never overstayed his welcome as a national coach or selector, never hankered after TV stardom - notwithstanding the occasional badly acted carpet ad. He has spent his days quietly tinkering with wannabe fast bowlers from Perth to Chennai, out of sight but never entirely out of mind.

As a result there remains a mystique about Lillee. A passer-by on the streets of Sydney, spotting this book under my arm, slipped almost religiously into that old Bay 13 anthem "Lill-ee, Lill-ee, Lill-ee". His fans will never forget. Lillee, unfortunately for the sake of his book, forgot years ago.

He retired from international cricket in January 1984. Months later he released an autobiography called Over And Out! His new book is essentially a rehash of the old, filled with boyish pranks and beer-slurping adventures. Dennis The Larrikin asks the Queen for her autograph. Dennis The Menace has a run-in with some old fogeys on the board. Dennis The Larrikin shepherds Rod Marsh, who has just sunk 45 tinnies en route from Australia, around Heathrow. Dennis The Menace has another run-in with more old fogeys ...

And so on. The difference is that 19 years on the details seem scratchier, the anecdotes less punchy. Lillee has softened with age too. In Over And Out! he damned Kim Hughes, his ill-fated captain, as "a man whose judgement I've never really respected". Now he says: "I never disliked Kim Hughes ... I rate [him] as a top bloke and friend."

His ghostwriter Bob Harris does him few favours. Lillee frequently repeats himself, sometimes in the same sentence. Misnomers abound (Jeff Dyson, Alex Stewart) and clichéd cricketspeak prevails; Lillee's holiday in Venice is "one of the greatest trips of all time". He also overdoses on superfluous exclamation marks!

A couple of revelations, however, are well worth repeating. Back in the gloomy mid-1980s, when even New Zealand sometimes beat Australia, Allan Border bugged Lillee to make a comeback. Lillee said no. Border persisted, pestering Lillee's minders until he eventually caved in. Yet by the time Lillee got himself fit Border had changed his mind, leaving Lillee to endure a couple of mediocre stints with Tasmania and Northants: an incongruous bookend to a brilliant career and an intriguing insight into just how desperate Border was.

Then there is the curious case of Greg Chappell's non-selection for Australia's 1969-70 tour of India. Don Bradman, then a selector, apparently said, "we don't want him going to India and getting sick" - a comment not recorded in Adrian McGregor's studious 1985 Chappell biography.

Ramachandra Guha recently identified Bradman, alongside Keith Miller and Shane Warne, as one of three Australian deities in India. Yet Bradman never set foot in the place, declining to leave the team's boat when it docked in 1948. "The Don clearly did not like India, and maybe even had a phobia about it," is Lillee's verdict.

Lillee is at his most engaging when he is not the central character. He is apocalyptic about India's superpower emergence, predicting a revolution that will make World Series Cricket "pale into insignificance". He debunks the hysteria that still engulfs Ian Botham's fluky 149 at Headingley: "I get sick and tired of people saying it was one of the greatest innings ... I expected to get him virtually every ball."

Australians have historically been better at playing cricket than writing about it. This is changing. The last four years have witnessed a wave of new books - some serviceable, others stupendous - about little known or long forgotten past players: Jack Marsh, Warwick Armstrong, Eddie Gilbert, Don Tallon, Jack Iverson, Gil Langley.

Still there is a gap. Sparkling, standout accounts of the true giants - Miller and Harvey, Benaud and Border - are almost non-existent. Even the supreme Bradman blockbuster has yet to be written. The same goes for Lillee. But watch out for Glenn McGrath's autobiography when it comes. Now that could be a corker.