Book Review - Sultan: a memoir by Wasim Akram

 Sultan: a memoir by Wasim Akram with Gideon Haigh

Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books, 2022     eISBN 9781743589106

Wasim Akram. An absolute master of fast bowling, the memory of cricket lovers who have seen him bowl is of his searing late-swinging yorkers ripping out the stumps of hapless batsmen the world over. Captain of Pakistan multiple times, with over 400 test wickets and 500 one day wickets and three test centuries to his name, he is a true champion of the great game.

Sultan is not just a re-hash of Akram's great bowling or batting: in this book he opens up more about the non-playing side of his life - his introduction into the Pakistan team, moving to England and learning a different cricket culture (not to mention culture in general), and the amazing and depressing internecine snake-pit that is Pakistani cricket.

As an Australian cricket afficionado, the parts of the book most fascinating to me were Akram's descriptions of the politics that surround Pakistani cricket....and they are actually politics, as many appointees in cricket administration are made at the behest of the government; and while cronyism has an impact on cricket all over the world, in Pakistan it is taken to extremes - as Akram states in the introduction "[p]atronage has always mattered in Pakistani cricket. The Pakistan Cricket Board chairman is a political appointee; there is a lineage of generals, judges and senior civil servants in the role. From the Mohammads to the Niazis, our game is pervaded by dynasties. Names recur: Ahmeds and Akmals; Rajas and Ranas."

Akram gradually comes to realise what all this means for team cohesion. As he becomes a permanent part of the team, under his mentor (and hero) Imran Khan, he slowly comes to realise that Khan and the other great Pakistan player from that period, Javed Miandad are not friends, but in fact rivals for the captaincy. This "selfishness" for want of a better word, pervades the team. Hierarchy within the players is jealously guarded, cabals are formed to push for positions within the team, favours are granted, players that have "push" within the media or the political sphere may be made captain, or even selected in the team, based on factors other than talent and form.

In fact with all the self-interest and nastiness on display in Wasim's version of events, it's amazing that the Pakistani team was able to function at all, let alone be as successful as they were during the period of his career. Akram explains how during his career he was in or out of favour with the powers-that-be and some of the players, and that every time he was made captain he was instantly undermined by a cabal of players or officials. It wasn't necessarily that they didn't think Akram could do the job, or even that they didn't like him; it was that they wanted the prestige and money that comes from power.

The saddest part about this sorry tale is that the Pakistan cricket team at that time had the talent to be the best in the world. Unfortunately they squandered their time and effort on grasping for the spoils everywhere except on the field of play.

Akram does face up to his demons in this book too - his inattentiveness as a husband and father with his first wife, his addiction, and his naivety which drew him into the ongoing betting scandals that wracked cricket while he was playing (he convincingly shows that he was innocent of any taint of match-fixing).

Akram now spends his time living in Pakistan, England (where he played County Cricket for over ten years), and Australia (where his second wife was born), has come to terms with the death of his first wife, and has written this book (Gideon Haigh has done a wonderful job of assisting here - I'm not sure how much Wasim actually wrote, but it sounds like him all the way through) as a memoir mainly for his children, who didn't see him play, and sometimes wonder why he has six million followers on social media.

A really good cricket memoir, that goes places some others don't go, and doesn't pull any punches.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Taste: my life through food by Stanley Tucci

 Taste: my life through food by Stanley Tucci

[NC]: Penguin Books, 2022 (first published 2021)    ISBN 9780241501009

I haven't seen too many Stanley Tucci films, apart from The Devil wears Prada which is one of my wife's favourite films. So, he wasn't really on my radar, until I caught his television series Searching for Italy, which I loved not only for the food, but for Tucci's undeniable style and wickedly dry sense of humour.

So, this Christmas, my wife bought me this book. I'm very pleased to state it's all I hoped it would be - witty, urbane, chic in an understated way, and of course a paean to Stanley's life-long enjoyment of food. Every now and then one reads a book and when you realise you are coming to the end you slow down, to delay the inevitable disappointment of finishing. This is one of those books.

The book is a memoir told through food. It is a love letter to his parents, particularly his mother. And it is a description of all the glorious (and not so glorious) food that he has eaten in his life. Tucci's grandparents were Calabrian immigrants to the USA, and so the food he ate in his younger years was Italian, and it is that food - basic and hearty Italian cuisine, that forms the basis of this book.

The book is structured around moments in Tucci's life, where he describes his childhood, or a moment of filming, or his life in New York or London, spiralling in to food, and often providing a recipe so that the reader can make and enjoy the dish he is writing about. He talks about restaurants long gone (and recently gone - it's sad how many restaurants shut their doors due to the COVID epidemic), and current, as well as the great family feasts and all the joy and argument that comes with them (it is an Italian family after all).

His vignettes of the film world are fascinating and amusing, particularly his rendition of a dinner with Marcello Mastroianni, about which he writes "...even the birth of my children has not given me the joy I felt from that invitation." It is this sort of humour that pervades the book and which makes it a joy to read. There are quite a few laugh out loud moments too.

Tucci doesn't shy away from the tough times in his life. His first wife died from cancer, and the trauma of that is obvious in the book, as was the fear when he himself was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth a few years ago - the last part of the book describes how he lost the ability to eat, to taste and to enjoy food - which made him realise just how much food and all it entails means to him. His description of his slow climb back to eating is uplifting, and a fitting end to a wonderful tale. 

Highly recommended.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell