Brave Men (Penguin Classics)

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Will Smeed hit the first century of The Hundred as Birmingham Phoenix produced a fine all-round display to defeat reigning champions Southern Brave at Edgbaston. SSAFA, The Armed Forces Charity Ant Middleton is an ambassador for SSAFA, which provides support to serving men and women and veterans of the British armed forces and their families. Manchester Originals opener Phil Salt to Sky Sports: "Sometimes [going hard at the beginning] it's going to be a hit and miss role. My job is to take pressure off Jos, when he bats through, he was not far off finishing the game all by himself. We're going nicely at the moment. This was an outstanding display of his awesome talent, a magnificent demonstration befitting an atmospheric evening at The Oval. On a difficult night for the bowlers, the greasy surface making the ball hard to grip, Buttler was the headline act of some sensational batting. An excellent compilation of newspaper columns written by WWII war correspondent Ernie Pyle from the fighting in Europe and published in 1944. Pyle was killed the following year on Iwo Jima, but he was especially popular for his intimate style of reporting that focused on the perspective of soldiers instead of the generals.

Not revealed in history books are the small incidents and conversations with the troops. You also read what it’s like to have an artillery shell pass barely over your head, or to be buried in debris during a bombing. Or landing at Normandy on D-day +1. Through Pyle’s eyes, you are there. This book is approximately the same age as I am, and it is as battered and worn as I feel. But it is an excellent read. Pyle wrote about the mundane, though with his wit the mundane became interesting and at times it was filled with pathos. He wrote of hilarious incidents and he wrote of blood and body parts lying on the ground. This book is filled with tears and laughter and a lot of in between. Ordnance personnel is usually about six or seven per cent of the total men of an army. That means we had many thousands of ordnancemen in Normandy… Ordnance had millions of items in its catalogue of parts… We had scores and scores of separate ordnance companies at work there – each of them a complete firm within itself, able to repair anything the Army used. Ordnance could lift a 30-ton tank as easily as it could a bicycle. That honesty comes out especially in his last reports, those from Normandy following D Day. His description of the lost belongings at the shore - a metaphor for lost lives - id powerful as an account of the cost of the operation. In these reports there is less of the corny humour with which Pyle leavened his earlier writings. The description of coming under "friendly fire" bombing is chillingly vivid.Yet after a rest, he returned to join our forces in the Pacific. He was killed during the battle of Okinawa.

Brave's women might have made it a double, having reached the final with seven wins from eight games to finish top of the standings.

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Fast forward four years and the gifted youngster is a star for England U19s and is ready to work his spin wizardry in his debut season for Brave. And let's face it, those are darn compelling subjects. Pyle relates their experiences using plain language and straightforward prose. But there is nothing simplistic about his understanding and empathy for the fighters, and I found that the spareness of his prose very often elevated the writing to the level of some of the master stylists, especially Ernest Hemingway. Consider this excerpt, near the end of the book, which describes Pyle and a group of soldiers sent to the front line to retrieve two disabled tanks. They arrive as darkness falls. They're very near the fighting, but they can't tell for certain how near. Pyle writes: