The compelling story of the Ashes Test match that encapsulated an age-old rivalry between two nations at the dawn of an era

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'This entertaining book is gripping reading for any cricket buff' Sunday Times
'An epic contest superbly retold . . . a fascinating slice of social history, it is a spellbinding read' Vic Marks
'You should go out and buy it now, because the book is brilliant’ Spectator

David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts relive the compelling story of a gripping Ashes-deciding Test match that heralded the dawn of a new era for English cricket.

The Ashes are on the line as England and Australia meet at Old Trafford in July 1961 for the fourth Test. For most of the match, England have their noses ahead – until a dramatic final day, of intensely fluctuating fortunes, as the tourists eventually storm to victory. In short, an Ashes classic, told here by David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts in vivid and immersive detail, recreating the sometimes agonising experience of millions of armchair viewers and listeners.

At the heart of Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes are two strikingly contrasting personalities: England’s captain, the Cambridge-educated, risk-averse, establishment-minded Peter May; and Australia’s captain, the charismatic, risk-taking, open-minded Benaud – a contrast not only between two individuals, but between two cricketing and indeed national cultures. Whereas Benaud and Australia symbolised a new, meritocratic era, May and England seemed, in what was still an amateur-dominated game, to look back to an old imperial legacy out of sync with the dawning Sixties.

The sharply observed final chapters take the story up to the present day. They relate the ‘after-lives’ of the match’s key participants, including Ted Dexter, Bill Lawry and Fred Trueman as well as May and Benaud; trace the continuing chequered relationship between English cricket and broader social change; and, after six more decades of fierce Ashes rivalry, wrestle with the perennial conundrum for all England supporters – why do the baggy green caps usually beat us?

"Compelling . . . The authors elegantly capture the tensions of that final day, dexterously putting the game and its players in a historical context and drawing rich profiles of the individuals involved" - Financial Times

"Patient and scholarly storytelling, alert to nuance and eager for detail, captures something of the hypnotic, accumulating rhythm of the full five-day game in all its pregnancy" - Telegraph

"This entertaining new book . . . [is] eminently readable. Each day’s play is meticulously described, session by session, and is gripping reading for any cricket buff" - Sunday Times

"David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts’s beautifully written book is a minor classic" - Literary Review

"I recommend Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes . . . there are so many contemporary echoes. David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts lay bare English cricket’s public school elitism, juxtaposing the stiff home captain Peter May with the charismatic Benaud" - Daily Mail

"An insightful account of the Australian cricket team’s victory over England in the1961 Ashes competition. Australia’s captain Richie Benaud, a small-town boy who paid for his team’s drinks on the boat journey across the world, outfoxed his English counterpart, Cambridge graduate Peter May" - Financial Times, Best Summer Books of 2024

"What makes the book so compelling is how Kynaston and Ricketts interweave the wider social changes already starting to take place with a blow by blow account of the match, providing not just an in-depth portrait of a memorable game but also a valuable slice of social history" - Choice

"Doubly successful, as both cricket book and social history . . . All derives from the life of the match, brilliantly retrieved from the aspic of the records" - Tablet

"A lovely new book . . . Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes [is] a tale of one great 1961 Ashes match and the wider social and political revolution it encapsulated" - The Times

"Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes . . . If that title grabs you, you should go out and buy it now, because the book is brilliant . . . The bulk of the book, though, is dedicated to a single Ashes Test . . . these chapters are sparkling. The authors say they have been wanting to write this book since they met at school in 1968; it is to our imperishable benefit that they have finally got round to it" - Spectator

"A masterful retelling . . . This recently published book about an “Ashes classic’’ will itself become a classic in the genre of cricket writing" - The Wire

"The prose throbs for the passion the authors still feel for this famously electrifying series" - Guardian, Sports Books of the Year

"This is a book that passes any number of tests for a cricket book to be successful… It is literate, accurate, poses many questions…In short, everything works. Not only is this the best book by some margin that has crossed my desk this year, but if it doesn’t mop up all the awards going… it will have to be a remarkable book to put this one in second place. An essential purchase that will be read and reread over the years" - Cricket Society