What's it like to let the world's fastest bowlers hurl a hard, round object towards you from a distance of twenty yards at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour? What's it like to get a throat ball from Curtly Ambrose, a fast bouncer from Wasim Akram, a toe cruncher from Waqar Younis? What makes batsman put themselves in the line of fire? How do you keep your concentration when you only get 10 balls an hour you hope you can score from? And how do you cope with the fear of injury or failure that, as Mike Brearley says, every batsman has to come to terms with? In his detailed research for this book, the first in-depth examination of fast bowling for two decades, Simon Wilde has talked to many past and present Test combatants. The result is a sharp, probing investigation of the way in which cricket's fire throwers have dominated, and will continue to dominate, the game since Lilliee and Thomson first terrorised batsman in the 1970s.