Stiff Upper Lips & Baggy Green Caps

Book excerpt: Peppered with bouncers, expletives, and even the odd diplomatic incident, this is a rip-roaring journey through over a century of Ashes history. For a list of every Ashes century and five-wicket haul, try Wisden, but if you want to know which England batsman was a martyr to syphilis and which Australian fast bowler reckoned the Queen had 'nice legs for an old Sheila', then read on... Stiff Upper Lips and Baggy Green Caps exposes the seamy side of Ashes cricket. It gives the inside story behind controversies from the Bodyline series of 1932-33 and the Lillee and Thomson blitzkrieg of 1974-75, right up to the unseemly modern spats that ensure that this biannual frenzy of backbiting, finger-pointing and dubious facial hair remains one of the great events of the sporting calendar.