As Tony Greig says in his foreword to this book: "England versus Australia is something special in cricket."

In the first hundred years of official Test matches, the two countries met 224 times (and on three other occasions rain prevented a ball being bowled). From the beginning, each match was followed closely by cricket lovers in both countries. In these days of television and ball-by-ball radio commentaries, the most casual actions of the principal players are likely to be analysed for the pleasure of the watching and listening millions of the networks. In this book will be found the names of all the players who played in the first hundred years of England-Australia Tests, with statistics showing who scored the most runs and who took the most wickets. But cricket is not only statistics, and the text relates how it all happened, recalling the great innings, the great bowling performances, the great finishes. Five of the matches have the score-cards printed in full: the first Test; the match of 1902 when Jessop scored the fastest century of all, and Rhodes and Hirst got the last fifteen by singles for a one-wicket win; Bradman's 300 in a day in 1930; Laker's nineteen wickets in 1956; and Lillee and Thomson's first triumph in 1974. The page from the score-book showing Hutton's 364 in 1938 is also reproduced.

Accompanying the story are the pictures. Apart from those already named, some of the great players whose photographs are among the 180 or so in this book are W. G. Grace, Clem Hill, Victor Trumper, Jack Hobbs, Ray Lindwall, Fred Trueman - it would be difficult to find an outstanding English or Australian cricketer who is not pictured somewhere.

Cricket fans will want to keep this book as a souvenir of the first hundred years of the greatest of sporting encounters: England versus Australia at cricket.