TEN TESTS FOR ENGLAND is two cricket books in one. Besides reproducing Bill Frindall's elaborate score sheets of the ten Tests which England played during the first eight months of 1988, it contains the author's journal of a highly eventful, chaotic and incomprehensible year in which the selectors dallied with four captains and enough players to fill almost three different teams.

This colourful saga begins at Sydney's Bicentenary celebrations, continues in New Zealand, where Richard Hadlee was poised to break Ian Botham's Test bowling record, returns to England to face the high fury of the West Indies pace attack, and ends with the relief of a comprehensive victory against Sri Lanka at Lord's. As the BBC's Test Match Special scorer / statistician and Cricket Correspondent of 'The Mail on Sunday', the author is able to assess the Test matches from two very different standpoints. He also provides glimpses behind the scenes of the touring circus, giving readers the benefit of the players' views of events as they happened, and offers some insights into the thinking of the selectors and match officials- in some respects as influential a presence as the players themselves.

All-time cricket greats Donald Bradman and Harold Larwood feature, too, when Frindall recounts the meetings he had with them Down Under.

The photographic artistry of Graham Morris adds another dimension to this unique record of a most unusual chapter in the history of English cricket.