If there was one New Zealand sportsman who was the antithesis of the professionals who abound in this monied age it had to be Bert Sutcliffe.
The elegant left-handed batsman is still one of the first named when it comes to choosing all-time New Zealand XIs.
The Last Everyday Hero by Richard Boock. Published by Random House.
He was a prolific scorer whose natural strokeplay, footwork and scoring impetus was as charming as his personal demeanour and made him hugely popular with the sporting public.
His story had been told before, in Between Overs, but it proved an autobiography too soon as he came out of retirement after the book was published and toured India, Pakistan and England and managed to demonstrate his class yet again.
The details of that tour, and his subsequent life, especially in his involvement in the Rothmans Foundation are brought up to date in The Last Everyday Hero a book compiled by Richard Boock from the research of the late Rod Nye, the writer of the recent book on Martin Donnelly who died before he could set to work on piecing the Sutcliffe story together.
It is a fascinating read with an endearing quality about a man who made friends everywhere he went.
It is a tale of a bygone, but not forgotten era, where the game was the thing. Played out without the microscopic effect of constant television surveillance, it was a time where New Zealand was still an infant in the game and it remains one of cricket's great tragedies that Sutcliffe never played in a winning Test side. Few would argue that there was none more deserving of achieving that feat.
His involvement in the Ellis Park Test of Christmas 1953 is undoubtedly a key moment in the book, and receives appropriate coverage, especially for Sutcliffe's innings of 80 in the face of torment from Neil Adcock who hit him a blow to his head which required hospitalisation, then the last wicket heroics with Bob Blair, who had received news in the morning of his fiancee's death in the Tangiwai train disaster.
There is also some frank discussion, more by other members of the touring party interviewed for the book than from Sutcliffe himself of the leadership style of tour captain Geoff Rabone. These supporting interviews lend a useful background to comments previously published which have not been quite as representative of the events as they might have been.
But it is no surprise the comments were not from Sutcliffe because he wasn't one, that is apparent several times in the book, for speaking ill of others.
One detail in the book which has been strengthened in the realm of myth is the attempted so-called 'rest day stitch-up' of Sutcliffe during his innings of 385, a world record for a left-hander until broken by Brian Lara, for Otago against Canterbury at Lancaster Park in December 1952.
The story goes that Sutcliffe was 215 not out at stumps before the rest day, and Canterbury assigned players to wear Sutcliffe out on the rest day by involving him in 45 holes of golf and then keeping him up in discussion late into the evening, and early morning, with Sutcliffe finally getting a couple of hours sleep before resuming his innings on the Monday morning.
The reviewer's own research for the Otago Cricket Association's limited edition book