A lot of people are against calling it a sport, and occasionally we’ve had people in the shop who have objected to us carrying books on the subject. But I’ve never had any qualms about stocking it.”But what also assists the impact the sport can make in the written form, Gaustad believes, is that it lends itself to vivid portrayal. ”Boxing is easier to write about than a football game,” he said ”It’s more finite. If you’re dealing with a football game it’s really hard to capture all that happens in words. You can get a flavour of boxing more easily and communicate it more easily.”Were the annual award lists to reflect sports publishing proportionately, there would be at least two football books up for a prize every year. That doesn’t happen, Gaustad believes, because so much of what is now put out for the football market is either ”dreadful biographies” or ”club specific”.The one football book to have made it onto this year’s shortlist – Full Time – The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino by Paul Kimmage – shares important characteristics with an earlier biography which made a mark on the competition even though it did not win, Addicted, the life story of Tony Adams ”Both books share a brutal honesty,’ Gaustad said.

”For football books to figure they have to be quite special.”The two other contenders this year – Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand’s account of a pre-war racing champion, and A Voyage For Madmen, Peter Nichols’ tale of the costly 1968 round-the-world yacht race – stand within their own tradition of books which have brought seemingly obscure subjects into vivid life.The fact that there are no cricket books in this year’s final crop may be an indicator of a more general trend. Over the last 16 years, Gaustad has seen what he describes as ”a gentle plummet” in cricket sales. ”The market is dying, the sport is dying,” he said.While cricket is slipping down in popularity, however, he sees other sports, such as cycle racing and rugby union, moving steadily upwards.Cycling’s appeal was underlined by the choice of last year’s winner, Lance Armstrong’s autobiography It’s Not About The Bike. That said, the choice provoked a strong divergence of opinion among the judges. This year’s deliberations were no less troublesome as the panel – Gaustad, BBC’s John Inverdale, author Frances Edmonds, journalist Hugh McIlvanney, broadcaster Cliff Morgan and magazine editor and television presenter Danny Kelly – championed their causes last Monday in the top-floor room of a Romilly Street restaurant which provides their annual forum for debate.The most contentious award to date came in 1998, when the prize was won by Robert Twigger’s account of training with the Tokyo riot police, Angry White Pyjamas. ”That took four or five hours to sort out,” Gaustad recalls. ”None of the judges is afraid to say what they think…”The easiest choice came in 1992, when Nick Hornby’s ground-breaking account of his life and times as an Arsenal supporter, Fever Pitch, won the prize.

”Every judge except one had it as their first choice, and the one who didn’t had it in second place,” he recalled.This year, as every year, the aim has been to come up with a title that corresponds to Gaustad’s working definition of what makes a potential winner: ”It has to be good writing – a damned good read It has to be, in a wide sense, true. And it has to take you somewhere accurately and offer some kind of insight.”That accolade – and a cheque for £10,000 – awaits another author today.Five of the Sporting Best: Shortlist for the William Hill PrizeLooking for a FightDavid Matthews (Headline, £14.99)Struggling freelance writer and journalism lecturer whose private life is a mess decides to become a boxer Not just an amateur, but a pro, if only for one fight. He decamps to a gym in Sheffield and embarks on an epic, downbeat journey of discovery. A painfully honest account of a venture of which some might day-dream but few would undertake.War, Baby: The Glamour of ViolenceKevin Mitchell (Yellow Jersey, £10.00)The world super-middleweight title fight between Nigel Benn and Gerald McClellan in 1995 was one of the most brutal bouts a brutal sport has to offer, leaving McClellan brain-damaged. The peculiarly intensity of the occasion, when “doom cloaked the night”, brought home to Mitchell that the violence of boxing goes way beyond the confines of the ring.A Voyage For MadmenPeter Nichols (Profile, £16.99)In 1968, nine men set out on the first round the world non-stop single-handed yacht race. One completed it, a couple of them made their reputations, two committed suicide.

Hillenbrand tells a story full of atmosphere and rich in detail.. Virender Sehwag has only played two Test matches, but already the 23-year-old batsman has made an impact beyond the wildest dreams of even Sigmund Freud. A century on debut against South Africa will have made many take notice, but it is the one-match ban he received from the match referee, Mike Denness, that threatens to cement his role in history as the man who rent the cricket world apart, albeit down old fault lines. Sometime today, Dalmiya and his acolytes will gather to decide whether to pick the youngster in the squad for the first Test against England, a match from which he is banned following the International Cricket Council’s ruling that India’s current Test match in South Africa is “unofficial”.According to the chairman of selectors, Chandu Borde, India’s squad for the opening Test is to be picked tomorrow, the first day of England’s final warm-up match against India A here. This means the BCCI’s decision would not be confirmed until the names are announced on 29 December.The absence or presence of the diminutive Sehwag would either calm or inflame the current situation, which is either a small row, or total anarchy, depending on whether you believe the ICC’s claim that all but one member Board supports its action.