White Hot: The Inside Story of England Cricket’s Double World Champions

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CRICKET SOCIETY AND MCC BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2024

’The gripping story of England’s transformation from prissy blockers to double world champions’
The Times

’A must-read for any cricket lover’
Nasser Hussain, Former England captain and Sky Sports commentator

The inside story of how England became the first men’s team to hold both of cricket’s World Cups simultaneously, from the players and key people involved.

When England lifted the T20 World Cup in November 2022, they became the first ever men’s team to be One-Day International and Twenty20 world champions simultaneously. In English sport, triumphs aren’t just rare - they also tend to be followed by a collapse. England’s white-ball cricket side was different: a team that followed scaling the summit by doing so again. They became, as Australia’s captain put it, ＂the benchmark＂ for the rest of the world.

White Hot tells the full story of how England built one of the most extraordinary sides ever seen in limited-overs cricket. First in 2019 and then in 2022, they produced a series of mesmerising performances to win two World Cups. It is a story of the vision and strategy that underpinned England’s transformation from white-ball stragglers into a side at the very cutting edge of their sport. It is a story of a golden generation, and the development of a system that passed on those values to the players that came next. And it is a story of how a conservative sporting culture shed its inhibitions to become a hub of innovation where players were free to be aggressive - even in the most important games.

Featuring exclusive interviews with players at the heart of the 2019 World Cup win, including Joe Root and Jason Roy; the 2022 World Cup victory, like Harry Brook, Sam Curran and Alex Hales; and double world champions including Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood. With insight from coaches and administrators, including Trevor Bayliss, Rob Key, Matthew Mott and Andrew Strauss, it reveals how England changed their culture, attitude to unorthodoxy and approach to risk forever.

White Hot examines this incredible journey in forensic detail. This is captivating reading for cricket fans - and anyone who wants to understand how a floundering team can become record-breakers.

Tim Wigmore is a sports writer for the Daily Telegraph, and has also written for the New York Times and the Economist. He is the co-author of Crickonomics, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Times and MCC Cricket Book of the Year awards for 2023, and the multi-award winning Cricket 2.0.

Matt Roller covers international and T20 cricket for ESPNcricinfo, the world’s leading cricket website. He was named the Christopher Martin-Jenkins young cricket writer of the year for 2021 and has appeared on the BBC’s Test Match Special.