As if the actual Ashes series itself wasn't enough to keep the heart singing, there was a special kind of nerdish joy to be found last summer . . . well, for this nerd at any rate . . . in the discovery of Gideon Haigh.

An Australian cricket writer of wherehave-you-been-all-my-life wit and elegance, his daily dispatches in The Guardian by turns illuminated and entertained throughout the series. He also wrote for Wisdenmagazine and on various cricket websites as the summer wore on, and the more you read, the more you hoped that someone would collate it all in a book once the final stumps were pulled.

They did, of course, and the result is what turns out to be Haigh's 18th book.

And the very least that can be said about it is that the good people of amazon. com are, as you read this, trawling for the other 17 for me.

Some of the pieces are features and profiles and some are match reports.

None has had so much as a comma changed since they were first written, which makes some of the reports particularly wonderful to behold.

As anyone who reports on a live sports event will tell you, the result of your rushed musings emailed to the office within a half an hour of the end of the action usually doesn't bear looking at the following day, never mind sticking in a book.

And yet, check this out from day two of the Old Trafford test, a day in which 317 runs came for 12 wickets (a hurler's 4-19 to 3-17, for the uninitiated): "If [Justin] Langer were a specimen of Australian fauna, with his diminutive figure, bright eyes and marsupial cuddliness, he would probably be a koala.

"But as any Australian will tell you, the koala secretes a disagreeable odour, emits a ghastly noise and is apt to stick his claws into you. Langer attached to the crease with a similar avidity."

One paragraph in the midst of 19 just as good, written while keeping an eye on the action and trying to come up with a passable structure for the day's piece.

Stunning stuff.

There have been dozens of other Ashes 2005 books on the shelves since last summer, but none come close to matching this.

And to think, the return is only eight months away. Can't wait.