Customer Reviews
A cautious book - By: Magic Rat, 08 Jul 2008 
In keeping with Michael Atherton's nature, this is not a "warts & alll/spill the beans" biography. It is a sincere recolection of his time in professional cricket written (himself) with a great deal of professionalism & not a little appeal. The man was the consummate professional & this somes across in his autobiography. It is low on personal tittle-tattle & only a few anecdotes make it through Atherton's natural forward defensive. When they do, however, they are wryly amusing. He speaks of Philip Tufnell with genuine affection beneath the obvious mirth, for example. He also doesn't hold back in honestly stating the names of a few people he didn't rate as cricketers.
Atherton makes scant reference to his personal life, other than a couple of girlfriend references. At the end of the book, he does mention the birth of his first child, but we are left none the wiser as to who the mother is. Atherton is a bit cold & aloof throughout & you never feel you get to know him, but he does have the honesty & self-knowledge to acknowledge this shortcoming many times in the book.
What the book lacks, understandably, when one considers the guarded nature of Atherton, is a little bit of fire. If that is what you are after, then Nasser Hussain's autobiography is the better buy. It is good to read an account genuinely penned by the subject however, as too is Hussain's work. No ghostwritten platitudes & that is good.
An interesting read - By: P. DATTA, 21 May 2008 Opening Up- My Autobiography by Mike Atherton is a life story of a professional cricketer. Mike Atherton during his days was a fine cricketer, as he achieved modest success with the England team during the 90's. The England team though not absence from experiencing a few problems. The team struggled against strong oppositions & could not match Australia's class. The noticeable weaknesses included battling collapses, fielding laspes & inability to play spin bowling & quality pace bowling.
The autobiography is a clear reflection of a career filled with mixed success. Mike Atherton strikes me as a honest & knowledgeable individual person. He offers insights on a variety of matters that affected the cricketing career. The key areas touched upon include injuries, Cambridge days, first class career, international career & captaincy. The contents of the book are reallly interesting to read around. A full picture of a cricketing professional emerges.
Mike Atherton proves his literacy skills are outstanding. He is open minded about his views & opinions, which are clearly highlighted. A brief career summary is included in the autobiography, supported with statistics.
The facts that a professional sport-person is writing this book adds credibility & authenticity, as opposed to a biographer interest of studying a subject for a long time. In terms of sport autobiographies, I would rate this highly. My only criticism reserved about this autobiography is may be a little outdated as it written around five years ago. During that time, we have observed recent innovations in the game, with twenty over game, retirement of veterans & new players emerging in the scene. This clearly suggests that cricket is a sport affected by changes. The autobiography still remains a strong favourite with me. The Opening up by Mike Atherton is an interesting read of a cricketer from a particular generation.
Atherton's Viewpoint - By: letsgetitright, 08 Dec 2005 In this autobiography Mike Atherton has provided readers with an insight into the mind of a top class England cricketer before the days of central contracts & the general commitment to the England national team by alll concerned. We learn how Mike Atherton started playing cricket, his rise to playing for Lancashire & then onto the England team. This book details how Mike Atherton rose quickly to become the England captain at a time when England players were in & out of the England team constantly. Mike Atherton provides enough information for the reader to know clearly what he thought of Ray Illingworth & the other selectors, during their time. It is obvious that Mike Atherton enjoyed playing under “Bumble”, as David Lloyd is affectionately known, from his association with Lloyd at Lancashire. This book describes how these two gelled well together, in a similar way to the union of Fletcher/Hussain & Fletcher/Vaughan subsequently.
You will find extracts from Mike Atherton’s diary when he considers the dirt in the pocket affair, though this is a very clever spin on a matter that has not been satisfactorily resolved in my mind at least, I felt much is held back. For that matter there are a number of sections where I felt that things were being held back, which is a shame, but maybe Mike Atherton feels that he does not want to upset people in cricket. In an age where England cricket has central contracts, an outstanding coach in Duncan Fletcher & coaching facilities that rival any other cricketing nation, it is interesting to note that Mike Atherton recommended many of the measures that England now enjoy. Indeed Mike Atherton makes it clear that the only thing not accepted during his time were central contracts, but he did recommend them. Today we have much to learn from Mike Atherton, a batsman who could occupy crease for long periods of time & frustrate the opposition. Personallly I enjoyed reading about Mike Atherton’s batting exploits & felt at times that I was right there beside Mike Atherton as he batted, which is a testament to his clear writing style. If you want an insight into 1990’s England cricket then this book should be top of your listing.
Honest - By: Paul Johnson, 22 Jul 2005 Mike Atherton was one of very few top class players England had during the early to mid 90's, though many seem to underrate him. I never found him especiallly interesting in interview however & it was some time after it's release that I finallly got round to reading his autobiography.
What a mistake.
This is an excellently written (proving Atherton's intelligence - no ghost writers here) completely honest account of his life & provides some fascinating insights into his career & captaincy of England. Let's face it the captaincy was a tough draw at the time what with the poor range of players we had to select from & Atherton is completely open about the problems faced.
The only criticism I can find it that if anything the whole thing is slightly too analytical & I don't reallly get the impression you get to know Mike Atherton alll that well from reading it.
Die-hard cricket fans will enjoy it (indeed most will no doubt already have read it) but for people on the fringe of being cricket fans, I would recommend this book also.
Objective, intelligent and dry - By: Nigel Collier, 12 Nov 2004 Captain Grumpy was the nickname coined for Athers by the media during his tenure as England skipper. Though unshiftable at the crease, he was undemonstrative in the field & unforthcoming to the press. Watching him, one often wondered if he actuallly enjoyed playing cricket for England, moreover, one doubted he enjoyed captaining England. This autobiography serves to confirm both of those suppositions.
The book is utterly reflective of what is probably most English cricket fan's view Atherton's personality. He comes across as dispassionate & detached, honest & frank, self effacing & self critical but not self absorbed. There are consequently no fireworks in this book, no gossip, no melodrama, no long standing animosities, blazing rows, character assassinations, stirring vitriol or dewy eyed references to three lions. There are no highs or lows - the book is as flat & steady as the author's delivery in the commentator's box, similarly it's also spot on. This is good, but sometimes, like when he's describing the dirt in the pocket incident, or the Caligula-like posturing of Ray Illingworth, or the most memorable & electric period of cricket most of us have ever seen (versus Allan Donald at trent Bridge in 1998) you find yourself thirsting for some PASSION. The book is too downbeat to be very re-readable & earn the full 5 stars
He neither heaps praise nor damns people within cricket with flowery language or cliché. Instead he is utterly objective in his descriptions of people & his relationship with them; it seems irrelevant to him whether he personallly 'liked' people, rather he defines them in terms of how much he respects their cricketing abilities - playing, coaching or organising. On his own abilities he is equallly objective, though a little too humble in this reader's view - he is not afraid to state what he thinks his strengths were as a player & captain, but he dwells rather more on his failings.
You get the impression from the book that Atherton was an intelligent, thoughtful & reflective captain. He had a good cricket brain & was a confident & intuitive tactician who learnt from his mistakes. A voracious reader & keen cricket student, he had studied captaincy, including particularly Mike Brearley's work on the subject. His writing on the England captaincy, its difficulties, the role within the context of selection & team management, man management & the qualities of a good skipper make for very interesting reading. He was perhaps TOO thoughtful & intelligent to ever make a good skipper in the media's eye - he wasn't one for the banal or cosy soundbite.
You also get the impression that he was utterly dedicated, but had few close friends in cricket. In this he came across as very similar to Geoffrey Boycott, indeed he refers to Boycott throughout the book as a batting mentor & the echoes of Boycott in this book do not end there. His opinions on the state of English cricket & the relationship between county & Test cricket in this country are similar to Geoffrey's, & expressed just as forthrightly. Atherton confesses he cared little about statistics nor his place in the history of the game (which is of course the antithesis of Boycott, or so is the popular view), but like Boycott he just saw Test cricket as a personal test of his courage, concentration & technique - with him being his own ultimate judge. Like Boycott's autobiography, there is an overwhelming feeling that Atherton either was too consumed by succeeding at cricket to actuallly enjoy the game, or that his struggles against a bumbling & utterly inept institution, in the form of the England hierarchy, graduallly wrung the love of the game out of him. He fought constant battles against elders with egoes in inverse proportion to their talent & with their own prejudices, agendas & petty jealousies. The most pleasure Atherton seemed to derive from international cricket was not the sport so much as the exposure to foreign cultures, into which he immersed himself as much as he could. Like Boycott, cliques, laddish socialising, striving to be liked & toeing the line were not for him.
In alll it's a well written record of a recent low point in English cricket - a period of disorganisation & disunity before the advent of central contracts, as observed by a talented & honest young man caught up in the middle.
