The Match revolves around Sunny, who loved to play cricket growing up in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The nine books listed below show that reading about sports is in certain ways superior to watching sports: the scene develops slowly, the players’ moves can be explored in multiple dimensions, and every time you flip back the pages, there’s the game again, in easy reach, ready to be reimagined. While most of my favorite sports moments deal with the play-by-play action taking place on a court, on a pitch, or in the ocean, some of them find delight in the minutiae of the background, whether in the stands with the spectators or on the field as a star leaves it. The best-written sports scenes combine two joys: your breath catching in your throat as you wait to see who will win, and the emotional pleasure that a good book can bring-access to another’s thoughts as they process the joy of victory or the sorrow of a heartbreaking defeat. At other moments, they signify something greater-an entry into a protagonist’s interior. Sometimes, these games are only offhand events in characters’ lives. Intellectual sports lovers, to borrow from Martin Amis, are “a beleaguered crew,” fated to be “despised by intellectuals and -lovers alike.” Yet, across literature, scenes depicting heartstopping goals, impossible tennis shots, thundering bowling strikes, and last-minute baskets abound.
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