A BIOGRAPHY of one of Yorkshire’s most successful cricketers, Brian Sellers, has been released.

'Brian Sellers: Yorkshire Tyrant' tells the story of the man who led Yorkshire to six county championships in eight seasons prior to the Second World War.

It has been written by Mark Rowe, a former sports editor on the Gazette & Herald, and was prompted by his discovery of a speech in a cardboard box at a second hand book stall in Manchester.

Sellers, who died in 1981, was born in Keighley but attended St Peter’s School in York (whose former pupils also include professional cricketers Norman Yardley and Jonny Bairstow).

After retiring as a Yorkshire player, Sellers chaired the club until standing down in 1970 amid the controversy which followed the sacking of captain Brian Close and appointment of Geoffrey Boycott.

Rowe, who is now a Staffordshire-based journalist, spoke with former Yorkshire players and members of Sellers’ family when researching the book. He also fell back on archive stories from the Evening Press in York's Central Library.

"Sellers comes across as a fierce man who was not someone you wanted to get on the wrong side of," said Rowe. "When he grew up, discipline was given and taken automatically in a way that would be outrageous today.

"As a player - and then as an administrator - he only wanted the best for the club and for the game of cricket in general," he added.

"If his 'one-man rule' wasn’t to people’s taste, surely the decades of bickering at the club after his time were even worse. Having a tyrant in charge is not necessarily bad."

The paperback, priced £15, has been published by the Association of Cricket Statisticians, and can be purchased online at acscricket.com.

Rowe will be giving a talk at York's Central Library on Saturday July 1, 2.30pm, entitled 'Mr Yorkshire Cricket' and will also be speaking at cricket societies around Yorkshire in the autumn.