BOOKSHELF

Press, 21 May 1982, Page 15

BOOKSHELF

IT IS MORE than just an adequate reflection of the growth in cricketing interest that, for the first time, an internal tour of New' Zealand should be the subject of a book. Particularly so. when the tour is as relatively brief — only four first-class matches — as that by Greg Chappell’s Australians last summer. But that tour has produced “Test Senes ’B2” (A. H. and A. W. Reed, Ltd, 152 pp., $11.95), originally intended to be the sole work — and the eighth cricketing work — of our esteemed cricket writer, Dick Brittenden. But Don Cameron, of the “New Zealand Herald,” was seconded to assist in the task when R. T. B. fell ill halfway through the tour. NOT ONLY is this the first internal tour book; it is also Dick Brittenden’s first soft-cover publication. But that detracts little from its appeal, and in many ways, it has even more appeal, as a tour record, than the previous such books of the author’s. Perhaps that is because it was such a comparatively brief tour; there were more pages available for analysis and comment, for the historical section, for the captains' chapters. Good value, indeed, and in these days of promotion and television extravaganza, undoubtedly the forerunner of more.—RMC.