Malcolm is picked for a one-day match, something that will seldom be risked; he opens with 35 dot balls. In the Tests he is fast and accurate and finishes with 15 wickets at an average of 17 (and four runs at two). He gets out to the last ball Sir Richard Hadlee bowls in Tests, and he gets a wicket with the last ball Sir Richard Hadlee faces in Tests.Chapter Five: England play India Malcolm is fast and inaccurate There are a lot of remarks involving radar. Malcolm misses the next Test through injury, and scrapes a tour place only because the co-author of Testkill has a fanciful notion of fighting fire with fire.Chapter Two: Playing in Jamaica, Malcolm feels so at home, he pulls off a run-out, which triggers a collapse. He gets Viv Richards out in both innings, beating him for pace. Against all odds, England win.Chapter Three: In the next Test, Malcolm takes 10 for 137 There are a lot of headlines involving cream Then it rains Against all odds, England don’t win In the next match, Malcolm takes 0 for 188 The series is lost. He is picked for England by the co-author of Testkill, who calls him Malcolm Devon.On his first day in an England sweater, Australia make 301 for 0.

He finishes the innings with 1 for 166 (Steve Waugh for a duck) England lose by an innings. (Go on, take him – the England selectors don’t want him.) His story, when you think about it, is wildly improbable.
Chapter One: Benign, bespectacled Jamaican arrives in Derby, via Sheffield He can’t bat or field but he can bowl fast. And this is more true of cricket than most games, because it takes longer, has more twists and turns, and gives more scope for character. Who needs fiction when reality has all the best plots?

Take Devon Malcolm. The only cricket novel that comes to mind is Testkill, by Ted Dexter and Clifford Makins. (It’s said to be good, but proper novels do not have two authors.) The reason isn’t hard to find.

Sport is itself a kind of fiction – artificial, dramatic, in a world of its own. Date beat her compatriot Nana Miyagi 6-2, 6-1, while Zvereva defeated the American Nicole Arendt 6-3, 6-2.. Cricket has inspired a lot of books, but not much fiction. But she let the No 9 seed, who won the DFS Classic at Edgbaston last weekend, recover and Garrison Jackson then eased to victory.The top seeds, Kimiko Date and Natasha Zvereva, both won. The 21-year-old from Exeter was beaten 6-2, 6-3, although she had a marvellous chance to make a fight of it early in the second set.
Having gone 2-0 down, Cross broke back to 1-2 and led 40-0 on her own serve.