How to survive those winter blues

Cricket Column: It's always a tell-tale sign that the cricket season is winding down when it becomes harder and harder to cross Dublin city on Sundays because of hysteria in Croke Park.

And while the GAA summer comes to a frothing head, cricket lovers in this country are thinking about putting their bat back in the attic for another winter. With the exception of the Irish Senior Cup final on Friday and a couple of rounds of league games, the 2006 season is shuddering to a halt.

The first few weeks after the season closes are great. It's wonderful waking up on a weekend morning knowing you don't have to lug your dead-weighted cricket bag half way across the world just so you can stand in the field for 50 overs, watching the ball fly in all directions before going into bat and spooning your first delivery up to mid-on or worse, getting yet another in a series of dodgy umpiring decisions.

But then, gradually, you begin to forget. As the days shorten and the weather closes in, your mind drifts fondly to those glorious days of June when all was right with the world amid marathon innings when the bowling was friendly and officials kind.

In those dark days when only soccer, rugby and the GAA National League are played, the options for your average cricket fan are few. Invest in Sky Sports so that you can stay up all night watching the Ashes from Australia or ask Santa for some cricket-related reading material.

Luckily, Irish cricket has been well-served of late with books of considerable quality. Patrick Bracken's history of cricket in Tipperary is fascinating (no, really, it is!) and Gerard Siggins' Green Days: Cricket in Ireland 1792-2005 is also an excellent read.

Indeed, Siggins and myself are currently collaborating on a book entitled Ireland's 100 Cricket Greats (to be published by Nonsuch Publishing, on the shelves in about six weeks), in which we will be picking the top 100 cricketers to wear the shamrock and also select and all-time XI.

But there is also a book with a slightly looser Irish connection that you may want to get your hands on. The Test Cricket Annual for 2005/2006 (Unicorn Press, 2006) is out now and is edited by Dubliner John Woods. The book is essentially a compilation of reports from each Test series during that period, written by fans from all over the world. Based in London now, Woods grew up in Rathfarnham, went to school at St Mary's College, Rathmines, and played junior cricket across the road in Leinster CC for 10 years before emigrating in 1985.

His first book, Test Cricket Grounds - the Complete Guide, was third in the British bestsellers' list for sports books when it came out in 2004, and he intends that the Test Cricket Annual will, as the name suggests, be published every year. It is an interesting idea to publish the reports of ordinary cricket fans, all of whom are photographed at the front of the book, including William Davies from Galway who has been following England around the world for many years. It has plenty of great photographs and a complete stats section with averages, partnerships and scorecards.

The book will, no doubt, help to alleviate the pangs of longing when the north wind blows and it's dark by 4.30pm.