Telford Vice, writing in Business Day, reviews Robin Jackman's autobiography. Jackers: A Life in Cricket isn’t all about cricket, he says; there is enough there to satisfy aficionados, and a lot else besides.

The value of Jackman’s life is that it would have a book in it even if he wasn’t a public figure. His father, a British army colonel who lost a leg in a shooting accident and wrote sentimental verse, is straight out of Wodehouse. One of his poems was titled Fred’s Erection. No, sport-lovers, it’s not what you think. Patrick Cargill, star of British sitcom Father Dear Father and two Carry On films, was Jackman’s uncle. At 15, Jackman was invited to a lunch to celebrate the completion of the filming of A Countess from Hong Kong, Charlie Chaplin’s last project as a director. It featured Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando.

In a review of Imran Khan's autobiographical book Pakistan, A Personal History, the Economist says that the impression left for the reader is of a man who is likeable and sincere, but not much gifted at understanding the motivations and plans of those around him.

But even by his own record, Mr Khan comes across as naive, short on the cunning displayed by Pakistan’s brilliantly awful politicians, who milk funds from the state to keep control of their regional fiefs. More important, he still looks unable to organise. He talks grandly in his book of Pakistan’s desperate lack of strong institutions, arguing that these are what made Western countries flourish. Yet judge by how his own party has failed to develop over the years, and Mr Khan seems to have little gift for building any structure that goes beyond his personal brand.

Tony Gould reviews Cricket at the Crossroads by Guy Fraser-Sampson in the Observer - a book about the ten years from 1967-1977, a time of political turmoil and bitter rivalry that made it a gripping decade for cricket.

The period goes from the captaincy controversy surrounding Brian Close, through the South Africa apartheid saga and the introduction of one-day internationals, up to the players' revolt over pay, which – combined with the media war between Kerry Packer and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – led to the defection of almost all the international stars to Packer's World Series Cricket. Fraser-Sampson has interviewed several survivors from that era; he also uses the memoirs of John Snow and Derek Underwood, as well as Colin Cowdrey and Raymond Illingworth, to good effect. Though far from impartial, he tries to present the motives of those of whom he is most critical in the best light.

Aditya Iyer reviews Jonathan Smith's book, The Following Game in the Indian Express. The book, Iyer says, is rare and sensitive literature in the world of sports books, one that doesn’t revert to scandals and controversies to sell the contents within.

To put it more simply, it is about being a fan, a follower, a hero-worshipper. If you’ve ever surrendered to the magic of just following a game or a team or a player and wondered why it begins to rule your life, then with his divine craft of philosophising the everyday, the author justifies that love, putting mania into perspective with a wonderful personal journey as a man obsessed with cricket, rugby, authors and poets ... Diagnosed with cancer in January 2006, Smith — a Welsh-born professor of literature at Tonbridge School in Kent — sets forth on a journey with son Ed to India, the spiritual home of the game of cricket.

Firstpost.com on Shyam Balasubramanian and Vijay Santhanam's book, The Business of Cricket: The Story of Sports Marketing in India, which talks about how, a few decades ago, Sunil Gavaskar was a unique phenomenon in India - a batsman-cum-entrepreneur.

There was one more reason Gavaskar captured the nation’s imagination. The 1970s was the era of the angry young man, with widespread frustration over the high unemployment rate, among other things. What the original angry young man, Amitabh Bachchan, was to Hindi cinema, Gavaskar was to cricket. He was the lone anti-establishment figure, irreverent and uncompromising, fighting to the last. His image was well-suited to the national mood of the times, when the country was looking to these anti-hero figures for some sort of respite.

In the Observer, Robert McCrum writes of Jonathan Smith, teacher and author, and father of former cricketer Ed Smith, and his book The Following Game, a deeply personal memoir centred on family and cricket.

As well as following his son's game, and teaching Vikram Seth, Smith can claim credit for the theatrical career of Dan Stevens, who recently starred as Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey. One of the most arresting passages in The Following Game describes how the 14-year-old Stevens auditioned for a school production of Macbeth, expecting to be allocated the part of Macduff's son, or Fleance, and found himself playing the lead.

Steve James, writing in the Daily Telegraph, reviews Not in My Day, Sir, a compilation of cricket letters the newspaper has received over the years. Edited by Martin Smith, the book includes letters which are “by turns acerbic, witty, opinionated and hilarious, and they are always to the point, silly or otherwise”.

It is a wonderful collection, beginning in 1928 when the Telegraph first introduced a daily letters section ... All the major controversies down the years are covered, from Bodyline to the D’Oliveira and Packer affairs to match-fixing.

Kasprowicz would have enjoyed the letter from Douglas J Wathen in 2009: “Sir, I don’t see why batsmen today accept being confronted by bowlers wearing gold necklaces and particularly sunglasses. When I played cricket no jewellery was worn. As batsmen, we liked to see the colour of the bowlers’ eyes. Would an umpire uphold my complaint today if I refused to face a bowler so adorned?”

Tishani Doshi reviews Shehan Karunatilaka's book, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, in the Observer. Karunatilaka's debut novel, says Doshi, lays bare Sri Lanka's soul through a made-up sporting hero, and is not just about cricket.

It's a story about many stories: friendships, rivalries, nationhood, the undesirability of old age, the quantification of genius and other "unknowables", like how much love do you need in a lifetime, and is sport really greater than life?

WG Karunasena, the 64-year-old narrator of Chinaman, is a grumpy old man in an endearing Walter Matthau kind of way. He's convinced that "unlike life, sport matters".

In the Daily Telegraph Scyld Berry looks back at his four years as editor of Wisden, and makes it clear he is unhappy at losing the job after a relatively short stint.

The Guardian commented last week that the change in editorship had been made in ‘ill-explained circumstances’ — and I can only agree. When I was called into the Soho office last October, the then chief executive explained that I had been “a very good editor” but that after four years, my year-by-year consultancy agreement would not be renewed because another editor was wanted to run a new website; then added, “it might be the wrong decision”.

Barney Ronay meets Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis, and finds them "almost alarmingly garrulous" and "endearingly genial" and discusses their new book Duckworth Lewis: The Method and the Men Behind It. More in in the Observer.

This is the odd thing about Duckworth-Lewis. They attract irrational hostility. "We've had a little bit of nastiness," Lewis says. "There is the hate mail – 'How does it feel to be the most hated person in the world, more so than Osama bin Laden?'

CricketWeb has had a look at the various books on the game that came out last year, and declared Henry Olonga's Blood Sweat and Treason as its Book of the Year 2010.

PG Wodehouse, one of the great comic writers, was also a decent medium-pacer and a lifelong cricket addict. He wrote several cricket-related books and short stories, and named perhaps his most famous character, Jeeves, after a Warwickshire bowler Percy Jeeves. To mark an exhibition on the author, Henry Blofeld picks a team of Wodehouse characters. Head to Patrick Kidd's blog in the Times for details.

"We open the batting with Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, a bit of a flasher with the bat, I think. Alongside him, I select Roderick Spode, also known as Lord Sidcup, the only man in the books who never has one single redeeming feature, unless you include making women's underwear. I'm sure these two will run well together, although they are bound to run each other out at some point.

Can you write a book on India-Pakistan cricket without ever having watched a match in Pakistan? India's Minister of State for External Affairs and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor can, and that too without seeming out of depth, writes Clayton Murzello in the Mid-Day.

Tharoor proudly claimed that he wrote about Sachin Tendulkar in the late 1980s in the Club Cricketer magazine in England, after Sunil Gavaskar had talked to him about this young gun who could become a great. Tharoor told a few of us how he wrote that Gavaskar had led very poorly during the home series against David Gower's Englishmen in 1984-85.

The editor of the magazine he was writing decided to amplify things after Tharoor filed in his "tough but fair" piece. The next issue rolled out with the headline: "OUT! Is Gavaskar the worst captain India's ever had?" Naturally, it created a sense of apprehension when he came face to face with Gavaskar. After all, he did not write what the headline said. The name of the author just didn't ring a bell, "it sprang", but Tharoor stressed Gavaskar took it sportingly.

Writing a bestseller is a piece of Christmas cake if you are a well-known cricketer and have a good ghost writer. And more the controversies, better the sales. Kersi Meher-Homji provides a blueprint in Mid-Day.

After a tour of bitterness and rancor, the player heavily involved in the hullabaloo hires an experienced ghost writer and instructs him to be as ruthless as possible.

"Find me a good quote which will make the front page of leading dailies in Australia and around the cricketing world," he instructs his ghost.

"But I gave you a nice one for your Diary last year," suggests the ghost. "Do as you are told," the star hits back.

	Trescothick's triumph means similar books would no longer be condemned as second-class books © Getty Images

Ghostwritten memoirs are the pariahs of sports literature and and are often judged by critics who have to stifle the urge to squeeze the words "pap" or "vapid" into their reviews. Rob Bagchi in his blog on the Guardian website believes Marcus Trescothick's Coming Back to Life winning the William Hill Sports Book of the Year is a triumph for the particular genre.

There have been so many produced with the titles 'My Autobiography' or 'My Story' over the past 10 years that I have started to suspect that it's gone beyond a claim for definitiveness and has become the crudest Amazon search engine optimisation strategy. Pretty soon all autobiographies will just be called 'The Book'.

Paul Holden reviews Craig McMillan's autobiography, Out of the Park, in his blog, Sideline Slogger, and credits him for a comprehensive and straightforward take on the various subjects raised in the book.

There are fascinating chapters on the formation of the NZ Cricket Players’ Association, the bomb in Karachi, his move to the non-establishment Indian Cricket League and the 2004 tour of England (the “nightmare on the road” - who knew!). He also offers some intriguing insights into the player contract process, and its weighting in favour of Test players. With the rise of Twenty20, and the increased lip service paid to the five-day game, one wonders how much longer this can continue to be the case.

	Warne:"There is no doubt in my mind that Kevin Pietersen can become the best batsman in the world" © Getty Images

Shane Warne includes Graeme Smith at number 44 in a list of his top hundred cricketers. Aside from his immense talent as a batsman, Warne believes Smith, as captain, is “on the verge of something special” as he heads a formidable South African outfit; a team that can potentially challenge Australia. Warne also feels Kevin Pietersen (no.33 in his list) has the all the makings of becoming the best batsman in the world. Read Warne’s Top 100 List in the Times.

At Test level, I reckon Smith could now be on the verge of something pretty special. South Africa have the makings of a side that can challenge Australia. I am still not convinced by their spin options, but in the seam department Dale Steyn has had a lot of success over the past 12 months, and Morne Morkel is genuinely brisk and is going to be a handful in Australia.

............................

There is no doubt in my mind that Kevin Pietersen can become the best batsman in the world. There will be no doubt in his mind, either. He's not far away now! He has bags of confidence, and, let's be honest, he has a lot to be confident about. Not many batsmen can average almost 50 in Test cricket but still look as though they are capable of better.

Marcus Trescothick's ghosted autobiography, Coming Back to Me, belongs to an increasingly popular genre, one that admits to the notion that cricket and the cricketers themselves are not inherently interesting enough to sell, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

To invest the pages with more bite and, no doubt, more marketability, the player admits to some previously unrevealed trauma, or, in Trescothick's case, a trauma that had been only half-revealed ... Other than moments of dark humour, such as when Peter Gregory, the England team doctor, tried his hand, unsuccessfully, at acupuncture, and when Trescothick was taken in by a fraudster of a hypnotist, this is a joyless book. There is little of the thrill of playing sport at the highest level, none of the humour, nor the fascinating details or character sketches of dressing-room figures that make a sporting life worthwhile.

In its Ashes Heroes countdown, the Times lists Craig McDermott as No. 45.

Meanwhile, the Independent's Brian Viner attends a black-tie dinner at Lord's Taverners to celebrate cricket's 10 surviving centurions – the men who made at least 100 first-class hundreds.

Geoffrey Boycott had other tactics for staying in all day. The scorer of 151 first-class hundreds recalled the advice of his Uncle Algy, that "when two people get involved in a run-out, one of t'buggers is going to be unhappy. Make sure it isn't you." Amid much knowing laughter, he added: "I followed that advice all my life until I met that bastard Amiss." I don't know how Dennis Amiss, another of the centurions, reacted to being called a bastard. And I couldn't quite see whether the mother and grandmother of a young lad at the table next to mine winced at such salty Boycottian language.