Third Man in Havana: Finding the heart of cricket in the world's most unlikely places

By Tom Rodwell

When Tom Rodwell embarked on a cricketing tour of India, he had only ever thought of the game as great fun.

But the simple joy of the local street kids when his team donated their kit to them made him realise that it could be more than that.

By turns touching and amusing, and imbued with a deep love of the game, Third Man in Havana is the story of the charity cricket programmes ‘Major’ Tom Rodwell has helped run around the world, and of the people he has encountered along the way.

From Be’er Sheva Cricket Club pavilion in Israel – a converted nuclear bomb shelter, useful in the face of Hamas’ regular rocket attacks – to a game of tapeball cricket with ex-Tamil Tiger child soldiers behind barbed wire in Sri Lanka, Rodwell discovered that the heart of the game is beating fast in countries more used to conflict than cricket.

Third Man in Havana is a wonderfully positive story, revealing that the spirit of cricket is alive and well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Icon Books
• Release date: May 17, 2012
• ISBN: 9781906850357

Reviews for Third Man in Havana

[tommcgreevy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A well hearted book describing the efforts that Mr Rodwell led to use cricket to overcome barriers between people and to take the sport into countries and places not usually associated with it. I found it most worthwhile for its descriptions of the places visited and the people encountered along the way.