The Art of Batting
The Craft of Cricket’s Greatest Run Scorers
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The Art of Batting
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Narrated by:
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Jarrod Kimber
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By:
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Jarrod Kimber
About this listen
Bloomsbury presents The Art of Batting written and read by Jarrod Kimber
'a wonderful tale' – David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd
'one of cricket’s most distinctive writers' – Andy Zaltzman
COLOURFUL CRICKET HISTORY MEETS EXPERT ANALYSIS IN THIS RICHLY RESEARCHED EXPLORATION OF THE ART OF BATTING.
Most batters just do their best, yet the top players create art. It is physically impossible to face an 80mph delivery and track it with your eyes, yet the greatest batters do more than just watch the ball, they can see into the future.
This book is about the batters who see what mortals don’t. Javed Miandad purposefully makes errors to manipulate the field, Sachin Tendulkar dug up a pitch to take on Warne, Shivnarine Chanderpaul practised non-stop on a beach with tennis balls until he mastered technique and Joe Root’s great play against spin is known to be a confluence of three random events. Others, such as Smith, Pietersen and Richards, carried on the work of a man 100 years before their time, and Ranji changed cricket with a bucket.
Their methods and stories are different, but their currency is the same: runs. Through interviews with cricketing greats such as David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, Nasser Hussain, Rahul Dravid and Brian Lara, this book shows you the science, skill and culture that made the 50 greatest batters of all time – and, ultimately, how they conquered leather with willow.
Critic reviews
'I always thought Jarrod was a master of words. I loved how he navigated passages with his vocabulary. And then, I began noticing some very intelligent use of analytics. He now straddles these two worlds with the ease few possess.' (Harsha Bhogle, Indian cricket commentator)
'In The Art of Batting, Jarrod Kimber further cements himself as the world's best cricket writer. He's an astute observer of how the games we play, and how they evolve in concert or opposition with the world, reveal the true nature of a man hiding in plain sight. A raucous stadium, on Boxing Day in his native Australia, in the corner of a foreign field in India, or in the palace of Lord's in London, is only where years and years of private work are realised. Modern sports might look like mass entertainment, but they remain a deeply personal quest to find and nurture each person's artistic soul. That's the world he uncovers and in the nuanced, literary (and delightfully funny) telling of this story Kimber is a man at the peak of his powers.' (Wright Thompson)
'Jarrod Kimber’s writing is as irreverent as it is forensic – a highly entertaining and informative read on the elusive arts of batting and run-making.' (Mark Butcher, former English Test cricketer)
Unique perspective
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It was released in May 2025.
I think Kimber wrote it over many years. This book is Jared's eulogy to the art of batting.
You may have heard that Jared Kimber came up with a list of 50 best test cricketers, best batters of all time, but the list is kind of incidental and I would even say that not the point of this book.
This book has 13 chapters explaining what batting is.
It starts with the evolution of batting, how batting evolved.
It starts with W.G. Grace.
Even though W.G. Grace is in this list, he is not anywhere near the top because a lot of what Grace played was not considered tests.
There is a chapter on eyesight and how important eyesight is.
It is told via stories of cricketers, whose game changes as the eye goes, there's a chapter on playing pace bowling, what's the reaction time to face a fast bowler, how do batters adapt to it.
There's an entire chapter called Testless, primarily about women cricketers who don't play any tests at all.
Chapter five is called High Front Elbow.
It's all about technique where Kimber totally geeks out and nerds out the technique of batting.
And this, I think, is where he is at his best.
And if you are a cricket nerd and you want to understand the technique for batting and how a small change can change your batting, this is it.
There's a long chapter called Drag on playing spin.
It goes into all directions that you expect it to go.
There's a chapter dedicated to running between wickets.
There's a chapter dedicated to attacking batters.
Yes, Virendra Sehwag is on the list and you get a sense of how great Viru was.
Then there are two chapters or three chapters on statistics, a chapter that focuses on batters peaks.
For instance, Ricky Ponting’s peaks were very, very high.
In his own admission, he played far too long and towards the end, his average dropped.
So there is a chapter that discusses average and what it means and what it does not mean and so on.
There's a complete chapter dedicated on motivation.
You get the sense and understanding of the difference between Aravinda Desilva and Kumar Sangakara.
The difference there was not skill or technique, it was motivation.
It's a fantastic chapter.
Rounding up this set of 13 chapters is a chapter on Machiavellian tactics and approaches to cricket.
The list itself, as I said, could be the payoff of the book, but I got so much out of the first 13 chapters, the list itself is kind of irrelevant.
Even in Kimber's own admission, this list is going to change.
If you ask him now versus a week from now, the list may slightly differ.
The Waugh brothers are not on this list.
I thought at least Steve would make it.
Adam Gilchrist is not on this list.
Adam Gilchrist was the only number seven batter Jared actually considered.
Jared Kimber calls Adam Gilchrist the number 51 on this list.
So that gives you a sense.
For me personally, I haven't seen at least half or more of these batters in action.
A third of them I've never even heard of.
When I read Steve Waugh's autobiography, it led me to months and months of searching YouTube videos and read about it.
This book has so much reference material and so many cricketers that I want to learn.
I suspect I'm going to end up buying a lot of books and watching a lot of YouTube video and reliving a lot of these test matters that are discussed here.
I will be reading this book multiple times.
I bought this book in Audible.
I listened to it during my walks.
I suspect I'll be re-listening this book multiple times.
The book ends with an eulogy to the ball, not the bowlers, but the ball.
And this is kind of written in Jared Kimber's style.
And it's also fun to watch Jared evolve as a writer.
I have read When Freddie Became Jesus.
I should buy all of Jared Kimber's books as I did with Gideon Haigh’s books.
But like his early books about the 2005 ashes, When Freddie Became Jesus is full of cursing and it's completely irreverent.
It's a fun read nonetheless.
But this is a book that I see Jared mature as he's got older and all of that.
If you're a fan of Cricket, I highly recommend this book. it, read it, you will get a lot out of it.
Lovely eulogy to batting
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