Ranjitsinhji is one of the most colourful figures in the history of cricket. The first non-white sportsman ever to win international renown, he was a truly outstanding player.He effectively invented the late cut. He scored ten centuries in 1896. He once scored two centuries in the same day. He subsequently became the prickly ruler of a state in India and one of the most famous men in the British Empire. But Ranji was an enigma: mystery surrounded his courtly past; he was hair-raisingly impecunious; many of his off-field exploits are murkily obscure. In this acclaimed and definitive biography Simon Wilde gets as near to the strange truth about Ranjitsinhji and his remarkable genius as anyone is ever likely to.
“Diligently researched, Wilde’s book bring skeletons rattling out of the cupboard”
Daily Telegraph
“Simon Wilde has valuably unearthed no end of sly intrigues in his quest of Ranji”
Frank Keating, The Guardian
“There will be polite coughing and an embarrassed shuffling of feet as the reality of the book drifts down the cricketing corridors of Hove and Marylebone”
David Frith, Wisden Cricket Monthly