While reading Bob Woolmer's Art and Science of Cricket Drew Forrest of the South African Mail & Guardian wonders how many of the 642 pages did Woolmer in fact contribute and to what extent is this really his account of the "art and science" of cricket.

The reader's unease is heightened by the repeated references to him in the third person and the fact that some of the anecdotes -- notably one by Moffet about Pakistani players pumping themselves up before play -- did not come from his pen. This is not hair-splitting. There is a legitimate suspicion that Woolmer essentially wrote a rather narrowly focused coaching manual and that, in a move to cash in on public rubbernecking in the wake of his sensational death, other people worked it up into a general-interest cricket book.

However Forrest goes on to say the book gives a scientific understanding of why and when the bowled cricket ball curves in the air.

It was intriguing to discover, for example, that the human eye cannot track bowling of higher than 130km/h and that batsmen facing pace move their eyes off the ball to where they expect it to land on the wicket. This, the book points out, effectively debunks the hoariest of coaching maxims: "Watch the ball right on to the bat."

	Feedback