Playing With Fire

When Nasser Hussain first met Duncan Fletcher, it marked the beginning of a partnership that was to transform the English cricket team. They injected steel into the team; they gave it backbone. England became a hard team to beat – and they started to win test matches, at home and abroad. And yet Hussain, born in India to an English mother and Indian father was at first glance an unlikely choice for captain. There were, it’s fair to say, doubts about his temperament. He was reckoned to be a hothead. Hussain wore his heart on his sleeve. The responsibility of captaincy kept him awake at night; he railed at critics of his hold on the No3 spot; and he took a stand in the moral morass over England’s scheduled fixture in Zimbabwe during the last World Cup and he proved his doubters wrong. Nasser Hussain pulls no punches in this bestselling autobiography. It is the story of the most interesting, thoughtful and passionate cricketer of recent times, in his own words. For the first and last time. Hussain wore his heart on his sleeve: railing against complacency, defying critics of his place in the batting line-up and making a principled stand at the last World Cup when the ECB seemed incapable of it. Expect passion, integrity, insight and candour in his