Gilly

Mark Peel has written 14 books including England Expects: A Biography of Ken Barrington (winner of the 1993 Cricket Society Literary Award), Ambassadors of Goodwill (shortlisted for the MCC/Cricket Society Book of the Year 2018), Playing the Game (shortlisted for the Daily Telegraph Cricket Book of the Year 2018), Cricketing Caesar and Never Surrender: The Life of Douglas Jardine (shortlisted for the Sunday Times Sports Book Awards 2021).

“In truth however the real surprise is just how long it has taken for a writer to decide to commit the Gilchrist story to paper, as even a moderate author would surely have been able to write a decent book on him. The fact that the man who eventually took on the task, Mark Peel, has a track record as an accomplished biographer is, effectively, a copper-bottomed guarantee that Gilly was going to be well worth reading… As far as the book itself is concerned it is one of those, relatively rare amongst cricketing biographies, that once picked up is difficult to put down. I suspect that come awards time Gilly will be on every long list, most short lists, and surely will come out on top somewhere. As cricket books go it is just about perfect… Gilly is a superb read, and highly recommended.”