It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
The Autobiography

The Autobiography

The Sunday Times Bestseller

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Get to know England's most-loved batsman in the compelling autobiography from Alastair Cook.

Watch. The. Ball.

It's just you. Standing at the crease. Waiting. The bowler is running. His arm swinging. The ball - 155 grams of cork, string and leather - is hurled at you. At 90 mph it travels 22 yards in under half a second . . .

Alastair Cook, one of England's most decorated players and highest test run scorer, knows what it is like to be your best under pressure. Yet at 33 he called time on his England career.

Come with him as he relives the fraught hours on the pitch, the desperate lows and astonishing highs, the paralysing anxiety that can send the best back home and the extraordinary battle of wills with yourself, the opposing players and even those supposedly on your own side.

This is cricket as you've never seen it. The view from the inside . . .

© Alastair Cook 2019 (P) Penguin Audio 2019

Reviews

  • Bracingly honest about the brutal nature of professional cricket
    The Times

About the author

Alastair Cook

Alastair Nathan Cook was born in Gloucester, December 1984. He is an English cricketer. He plays for Essex County Cricket Club and previously for England. Cook is the fifth highest Test scorer of all time.

He is regarded as England's most successful batsman ever and now he is an icon and role model in sport.

Outside of cricket, Alastair has written columns in the Telegraph and Metro, he is a talented saxophone player and donates his time to raising money for cancer charities and the David Randall Foundation. He is now married with three children.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more