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Mark Waugh - The Biography by James Knight. Published by Harper Sports.

Mark Waugh has long lived in the shadow of his older twin brother Steve yet he has fashioned his own career in cricket.

But in the literary stakes the closeness that is reflected in their cricket achievements might as well be as wide as the Nullarbor Plain.

Steve, through his continuing involvement with his annual diaries, has fashioned a reputation of respect for the game and its history while also revealing a keen insight into the traditions of cricket and of Australians.

Mark, through his biographer, does not show the same depth of quality in this record of his career.

For a blow-by-blow account of his life, there wouldn't be a statistic out of place in this book. But that is its fault.

There is too much tedious reference to old score sheets and series averages to grip the reader and give a real insight to the subject.

Large tracts of clear interview text defined by placement in italics leap out of pages to give a broken view of Waugh's opinion on matters, or those of team-mates and family. And because this is a biography, as opposed to an autobiography, the reader is left with a sense of detachment from the subject.

When he does speak Waugh is free and frank. In the early stages he is very open about how his relationship with his partner developed, while later on he gives no doubt about his feelings on the dealings in matters related to his much publicised brushes with the corrupt side of the game.

It is easy to imagine the reason for the indignance he felt at how people treated him over accusations, but he can't escape the reality that his earlier receipt of cash for information did leave him vulnerable to people's sensibilities on the subject. To think otherwise is to be as naive as he claimed to be in initially accepting money for advice.

As a professed gambler, Waugh did not seem to see the vulnerable position he was in.

When news broke that a fine that had been required of he and Shane Warne by the Australian Cricket Board for their misdemeanours, and had then been hushed up, Waugh said, "I was disappointed how it was portrayed because I couldn't understand how such a simple thing could become such a big deal. People were drawing conclusions left, right and centre. I was surprised at how big an event it was."

Oh really?

In being critical of journalists who passed comment on the situation at the time, Waugh pulled out the line about journalists never having played the game.

"The thing with those guys is that they've never played the game, so I find it hard to accept that people who haven't played the game are criticising you all the time when they haven't been there and done that."

Some would say that it's just as well the journalists hadn't "been there and done that" otherwise the facts about associations with gamblers might have remained submerged among cricket's secret society.

And they say players never read the newspapers!

"I think you have to have played some sort of sport at some level to understand the pressures, the whole set-up. It's not necessary, but it would definitely help you get insight into the game," he said.

Taken a step further, Waugh's reasoning could be said to mean that golf journalists, and fans for that matter, would need to have played at the same level as Tiger Woods to appreciate how he handles pressure.

Or to have played basketball to the same level as Michael Jordan to appreciate how skilful he really is.

Such criticism is really nonsense and suggests a degree of shelter from the real world that professional sports people are all too often sheltered from while everything is laid on for them.

There is no doubt Waugh was entitled to feel aggrieved over the shocking treatment he and several other players received from the International Cricket Council (ICC) who denied them the processes of natural justice, of innocence until proven guilty, when unsubstantiated allegations were made by M K Gupta that he had paid money to Waugh, Alec Stewart, Brian Lara, Dean Jones, Hansie Cronje, Aravinda de Silva, Arjuna Ranatunga, Martin Crowe and Saleem Malik.

That Gupta was not required to front up with evidence before investigations were started against the players was an indictment of ICC processes. He never did show which was further proof that the initial stance had been wrong.

But these were difficult times as the ICC attempted to get out of a free fall that had hit the game as match-fixing allegations rocked their image. Given his earlier involvement, however, Waugh still had less reason to be upset than several of the other players concerned.

By the same token there are some interesting moments of analysis of cricket and cricketers in the book, albeit briefly, none more revealing than the thoughts of the Australians facing the might of the West Indies in 1994/95.

"The West Indies is a hard place to play because it's so casual, you get in a relaxed mood and feel like you're on holidays. It always lulls you into a false sense of security, then all of a sudden you're at war. It's really hard to change from one to the other.

"We didn't say it, but deep down we were probably thinking we couldn't win. Looking back, I think a lot of the players didn't want to be there. We were just hoping to get through the tour without getting too much damage to our reputations. We were always going to struggle with that attitude ...

"Their bowling was exceptional, especially [Malcolm] Marshall, [Curtly] Ambrose and [Courtney] Walsh. I think Ambrose is the best fast bowler I've ever played against. Even back then he was relentless. Never bowled any bad balls. If he wanted to stop you scoring, he could do that; if he wanted to step up and intimidate you, he could do that too. He could do everything."

Let there be no doubt that Waugh has made an outstanding contribution to cricket. His international record speaks for itself: 125 Tests, 7949 runs, 173 catches, 59 wickets; 244 ODIs, 8500 runs, 85 wickets and 108 catches.

He has been a quality batsman whose finest innings have been fit to rank with some of the greatest in the game.

At the height of the match-fixing crisis, Waugh claimed he was naive, some said he was greedy. The readers of this biography can make up their own minds. Whatever their conclusions, they are not likely to be as forgiving as Waugh might like to think he is entitled to expect.

His approach is in sharp contrast to that of his long-time team-mate Warne in his own book published last year.

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