The Narrow Line by Geoff Cook & Neville Scott

The Narrow Line (First Edition in Original Dust Jacket)

A Former England Opening Batsman's Inside Study of What Separates Success from Failure in Professional Cricket

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: The Narrow Line: An Anatomy of Professional Cricket
• Authors: Geoff Cook & Neville Scott
• Publisher: The Kingswood Press, London
• Publication Date: 1991
• ISBN-13: 9780413655509
• ISBN-10: 0413655504
• Edition Details: First Edition.
• Binding: Publisher's dark blue cloth hardcover with a dust jacket.
• Physical Format: Octavo (8vo) hardcover, 182 pages. With a foreword by Mike Brearley.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
• Exterior / Boards: The dark blue cloth boards are clean, with a neat spine and square corners. No damage is visible with the jacket removed.
• Interior: The text block is clean and the binding appears tight. The cream pages are evenly toned, with some browning at the page edges. There are no markings or foxing visible.
• The Dust Jacket: Present and intact, protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover. The glossy jacket is clean and bright, with no obvious tears. The author blurb is on the front flap and black and white photographs appear on the back cover.

Synopsis & Historical Value

Published in London in 1991 by The Kingswood Press, The Narrow Line: An Anatomy of Professional Cricket is an instructional and analytical study of the English game, with a foreword by Mike Brearley. It was written by Geoff Cook, a former England and Northamptonshire opening batsman, together with the cricket journalist Neville Scott.

The authors look at the psychological and sociological factors that, in their view, separate success from failure at the highest level. Their subject is the professional game as a whole: Test matches, the County Championship and one-day cricket, as well as the dressing-room and the committee room. The book also analyses one-day, three-day and five-day cricket.

For collectors of cricket literature and students of the English county game at the end of the amateur-professional era, it offers a practitioner's view from the inside, in a clean first edition with its dust jacket.

Author Profile: Geoff Cook

Geoff Cook was born in Middlesbrough on 9 October 1951. He played for Northamptonshire from 1971 to 1990 and captained the county from 1981 to 1988. He played seven Tests and six One-Day Internationals for England.

After his playing career he became Durham's director of cricket, a post he held until his retirement in 2018.

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