Third Man in Havana - Tom Rodwell

Finding the Heart of Cricket in the World's Most Unlikely Places
An uplifting tale of cricket – but not as you know it – making a difference in far-flung parts of the world.
When the author Tom Rodwell embarked on a cricketing tour of India, he had only thought of the game as great fun. But the simple joy of the local street kids when his team donated their kit to them made him realize that it could be more than that.
For six years Tom Rodwell ran cricketing programmes from Cuba to Zimbabwe, attempting to soothe the world’s ills with the curiously English balm known as cricket. 
Touching, amusing and imbued with a deep love of the game, Third Man in Havana documents the characters and experiences Rodwell encountered, such as Guantanamo Cricket Club opening bowler, Stalin, who perhaps unsurprisingly didn’t take kindly to his LBW appeal being rejected in Cuba’s first ever match against an England XI. 
From Beersheva Cricket Club pavilion in Israel – a converted nuclear bomb shelter, useful in the face of Hamas’ regular rocket attacks – to a game of ‘tapeball’ cricket with ex-Tamil Tiger child soldiers behind barbed wire in Sri Lanka, Rodwell discovers that the heart of the game is beating fast in countries more used to conflict than cricket.  
Third Man in Havana is a wonderfully positive story, revealing that the spirit of cricket is alive and well.
[Based on the book description on the book jacket and  Amazon.com]

 My Comments: 
Entertaining book written in a humorous vein. The impact of cricket matches on the communities could have been more elaborated upon. Nevertheless a good book to read for cricket lovers and people with the sense of social responsibility.


Goodreads Rating - 3.17 out of 5 ( 6 Ratings)
 
 
Buy the Kindle book version.
(Anybody can read Kindle books—even without a Kindle device—with the FREE Kindle app for smartphones and tablets.)