''A Lot of Hard Yakka'', subtitled "Triumph and torment: a county cricketer's life," is the first volume of

autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

by the

cricketer Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

Simon Hughes Sir Simon Henry Ward Hughes (born 17 May 1951) is a former British politician. He is now the Chancellor of London South Bank University, an External Adviser to The Open University, and UK Strategic Adviser to Talgo. Hughes was Deputy Leader ...

, and the William Hill

Sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...

Book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

of the

Year A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hou ...

for

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, making it the first volume on

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

thus to be feted. Its success, as surmised by Leslie Thomas in a review for ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...

'', "came more than a little to the author's surprise":

I mentioned to Hughes that I had enjoyed his tale of a cricketer's beginnings, his life in and out of the game, and his eventual departure from it, but that I thought it was a terrible title. Amiable chap that he is, he agreed. Yakka is an Australianism, meaning work, endeavour, experience (I think) ... it makes a breezy and irreverent read.Thomas 1998, p. 1392.

Written in a droll and self-deprecating and often colloquial style, the book is now widely esteemed a genre classic, having earned kudos from such critics as Michael Parkinson and

Ian Wooldridge Ian Edmund Wooldridge, Order of the British Empire, OBE (14 January 1932 – 4 March 2007) was a British sports journalism, sports journalist. He was with the ''Daily Mail'' for nearly 50 years. Biography Born in New Milton, Hampshire, Wooldridg ...

, and served to promote Hughes's now-established career in

sports journalism Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the ...

. It has a sequel entitled ''Yakking Around the World''.

References

* Thomas, Leslie. "Cricket Books, 1997." In ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 1998'', 1387–1401. St Ives: John Wisden & Co., 1998.

Notes

1997 non-fiction books Australian autobiographies Sports autobiographies Cricket books Headline Publishing Group books {{sport-bio-book-stub