To the modern follower of the game, 'Tich' Freeman's cricketing exploits read like something out of Boy's Own Paper rather than the sober pages of Wisden: an average of 260 wickets a season between 1928 and 1935; 304 wickets in one season (1928); fired by Kent because he had taken only 108 wickets in 1936; ten wickets in an innings three times and 17 wickets in a match twice. The figures are remarkable enough in themselves, but the truly astonishing and significant thing about them is that they were achieved by a type of bowler who has now almost disappeared from first-class cricket in England: the leg-break and googly bowler. Before the war the leg-spinner was as certain of his place in a county side as was the wicket-keeper, and his decline has provoked more nostalgic lamenting than any other change in the game.

David Lemmon, editor of Pelham Cricket Year, examines this decline in the context of Freeman's career, and provides some thought-provoking facts about the leg-spinner in the Test arena - 'Tich' himself, who comes to life in these pages as a loyal and attractive character, won only 12 caps. It is a book which no cricket historian nor student of the modern game will want to miss.