If you like reading cricket books, then you’ll love Glenn McGrath: Line and Strength. Ideal for a young cricketer who is looking to move up the grades, this book explains how a very shy Glenn McGrath lived in a caravan for many months when he moved to Sydney. He was not a star cricketer when he lived in Narromine in NSW, but he made himself an outstanding international cricketer through determination and persistence. This is an ‘as told to’ book, which is not a style I like-I would have preferred Glenn McGrath to write his own book rather than have Daniel Lane (co-author) do the research. This is not the best cricket biography you’ll ever read, and it’s not going to win the Pulitzer Prize, but I encourage parents to buy this book as it displays how a country boy from Backwater Cricket Club Under 16s went on to become one of the world’s greatest fast bowlers. The chapters dealing with Jane McGrath’s cancer difficulties are also sensitively written. Glenn McGrath is not your average hot-head fast bowler, he’s the thinking man's cricketer. From young boy ploughing wheat to levelheaded sportsman dining on James Packer’s yacht, he is someone you can relate to, and aspire to.

Santo Caruso owns Melbourne Sports Books and was a very poor club cricketer himself

Tags: glenn mcgrath