Best known to a generation of Australian cricket fans as the incisive, and sometimes controversial, cricketing voice of the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC radio, Peter Roebuck's own career spanned 25 of the most exhilarating years of world cricket. From the heyday of the Somerset cricket club to the controversy of the World Series and ten happy years with Devon, Roebuck played alongside some of the true greats of the world game. Viv Richards, Joel Garner, Ian Botham, Martin Crowe and a young Steve Waugh were all team-mates. Considered by some the best cricketer to have never played for England', he did in fact captain an English team which travelled to Holland. Their emphatic victory in the second Test was completely overshadowed by their shock defeat in the opening game! A dedicated coach and mentor to young enthusiasts, Roebuck first came across some of Australia's current crop of cricket superstars as brash young novices at the Academy - Justin Langer, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and a portly young man with the most dangerous spinning finger in the world, one Shane Warne. In Sometimes I Forgot to Laugh, Peter Roebuck gives his readers an insight into the hitherto very private life of a complex and sometimes troubled man, but one always sustained by his abiding passion for the game of cricket.

Table of Contents

1 Antecedents2 To Bath3 Millfield4 Professional Debut5 More Blues6 Greece7 Down Under8 Somerset Resurgent 1978-799 Mixed Results, 1980-8210 Decline and Fall11 Learning to Lead12 The Somerset Affair13 Into the Press Box14 To Regroup and Rebuild15 Towards Retirement16 The Australian Renaissance17 The Glory Years: Border, Taylor and Waugh18 Cricketing Controversies19 Devon Days20 Africa21 Trial and Tribulation22 The Australian Way23 The Power of the Pen24 Two Great Batsmen25 Epilogue