Golden Boy

Kim Hughes was one of the most majestic and daring batsmen to play for Australia in the last 40 years. Golden curled and boyishly handsome, his rise and fall as captain and player is unparalleled in our cricketing history. He played at least three innings that count as all-time classics, but it's his tearful resignation from the captaincy that is remembered.

Insecure but arrogant, abrasive but charming; in Hughes' character were the seeds of his own destruction. Yet was Hughes' fall partly due to those around him, men who are themselves legends in Australia's cricketing history? Lillee, Marsh, the Chappells, all had their agendas, all were unhappy with his selection and performance as captain - evidenced by Dennis Lillee's tendency to aim bouncers relentlessly at Hughes' head during net practice.

Hughes' arrival on the Test scene coincided with the most turbulent time Australian cricket has ever seen - first Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, then the rebel tours to South Africa. Both had dramatic effects on Hughes' career. As he traces the high points and the low, Chris Ryan sheds new and fascinating light on the cricket - and the cricketers - of the times.

Winner of Winner 2019

Christian Ryan's Golden Boy has this brawny lyricism ... It's really alive, that book. Like a great Australian novel. Hughes personifies something mercurial, ethereal, this artistic flair alongside these macho, rugged, brawny bruisers like Marsh and Lillee. It's told with such lyricism and tempo. I found it absolutely enthralling and a real revelation. -- William Fiennes, member of Wisden Cricket Monthly's Best Cricket Book Ever judging panel
At once unputdownable and also unpickupable, because if you pick it up you will eventually finish it, and what are you going to do then? -- Rob Smyth Guardian
It made me laugh, it told me things, it reminded me why I love the subject I'm reading about and it put a series of images in my head that I won't ever forget. It's audacious, it's got chutzpah, it's done with a lyrical flourish. I didn't know cricket books could be written like this. -- Phil Walker, editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly
A cracking read ... An almost tragic but compelling tale of how Hughes tried hard - and failed - to fit his smiling personality into the hard-faced world of his country's uniquely macho and badly moustached team. The Observer
Graphic ... Shocking ... Devastating ... If half of what we read here is true, two Australian legends should hang their heads in shame. -- Simon Wilde The Times
A valuable archive of the professional cricketer's lot during the 1980s - paltry wages, petty officials, vermin-infested hotels and astonishing levels of alcohol consumption ... a fascinating account of Australian cricket's leanest years. Times Literary Supplement
Absolutely superb, one of the best cricket books I've read. -- John Stern The Wisden Cricketer

Christian Ryan was the founding editor of the national current affairs magazine The Monthly. He has edited Inside Edge magazine, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia, and was the deputy editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly. Ryan has also worked as a journalist for The Guardian newspaper.

Kim Hughes was one of the most majestic and daring batsmen to play for Australia in the last 40 years. Golden curled and boyishly handsome, his rise and fall as captain and player is unparalleled in our cricketing history. He played at least three innings that count as all-time classics, but it's his tearful resignation from the captaincy that is remembered. Insecure but arrogant, abrasive but charming; in Hughes' character were the seeds of his own destruction. Yet was Hughes' fall partly due to those around him, men who are themselves legends in Australia's cricketing history? Lillee, Marsh, the Chappells, all had their agendas, all were unhappy with his selection and performance as captain - evidenced by Dennis Lillee's tendency to aim bouncers relentlessly at Hughes' head during net practice. Hughes' arrival on the Test scene coincided with the most turbulent time Australian cricket has ever seen - first Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, then the rebel tours to South Africa. Both had dramatic effects on Hughes' career. As he traces the high points and the low, Chris Ryan sheds new and fascinating light on the cricket - and the cricketers - of the times.

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