Ivo Bligh is best known for his role in the creation of The Ashes, the small urn that Australia and England fight for in one of the world’s oldest ongoing sporting contests. Bligh captained the English cricket team that travelled to Australia in 1882/83, the first tour by an English team following the 1882 victory by Australia which led to the famous mock obituary of English cricket. So, a biography of Bligh, however slim, with details of his performance in each of the first-class matches he played in, is greatly appreciated.

Peter Wynn-Thomas is a veteran cricket historian of great repute and “Ivo Bligh” details his aristocratic background and his surprisingly short international and first-class career, giving us exhaustive details of his batting career season by season, for each team he played for. One used to think that with the internet that these books were no longer required but now that Cricket Archive is a subscription service, we may need to turn back to books like this. ( )