Peter Roebuck is arguably Australia's best cricket writer, and a popular ABC radio commentator. As a first-class cricketer he has played with many of the greats of the game, and he is no stranger to controversy, as this elegantly told autobiography shows.
Best known to a generation of Australian cricket fans as the incisive, and sometimes controversial, cricketing voice of the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC radio, Peter Roebuck's own career spanned 25 of the most exhilarating years of world cricket.
From the hey-day of the Somerset cricket club to the controversy of the World Series and ten happy years with Devon, Roebuck played alongside some of the true greats of the world game. Viv Richards, Joel Garner, Ian Botham, Martin Crowe and a young Steve Waugh were all team-mates. Considered by some "the best cricketer to have never played for England", he did in fact captain an English team which travelled to Holland. Their emphatic victory in the second Test was completely overshadowed by their shock defeat in the opening game!
A dedicated coach and mentor to young enthusiasts, Roebuck first came across some of Australia's current crop of cricket superstars as brash young novices at the Academy - Justin Langer, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and a portly young man with the most dangerous spinning finger in the world, one Shane Warne.
In 'Sometimes I Forgot to Laugh', Peter Roebuck gives his readers an insight into the hitherto very private life of a complex and sometimes troubled man, but one always sustained by his abiding passion for the game of cricket.
