The Grade Cricketer: Tea and No Sympathy

Book excerpt: The brilliantly funny new novel featuring The Grade Cricketer, hero of the bestselling cult classic The Grade Cricketer. 'A sequel to The Grade Cricketer? It's like junk time in a second innings - something you just have to be part of.' Gideon Haigh. Is life without cricket worth living? It's a question asked and answered by the Grade Cricketer, as he faces a cricket-free future after a devious plan goes horribly wrong. Hilarious, ridiculous and completely true to life to anyone who's ever spent time in a dressing room, Tea and No Sympathy takes us on a skeweringly funny sporting misadventure through the world of grade cricket and the flawed, damaged and occasionally appalling people who play it, from the creators of the bestselling novel The Grade Cricketer. Praise for The Grade Cricketer: 'The Grade Cricketer is the finest tribute to a sport since Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, and the best cricket book in yonks. It's belly-laughing funny but it's also a hymn to the grand and complex game delivered with a narrative pace and ability I'm afraid most Test players don't have. For anyone who ever dreamed of excelling at a sport but never quite made it but still gave it your life, this is the story. A great read!' Tom Keneally 'The Grade Cricketer has taken us so far inside a district club dressing room that you feel like a locker. Ligaments could not be closer to the bone than some of his observations.' Kerry O'Keeffe 'The Grade Cricketer is strange and, I suspect, brilliant'. Wisden