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Monty's Turn: Taking My Chances by Monty Panesar
(Hodder and Stoughton; £18.99; 320pp)

Apparently Monty Panesar racked in a cool £300,000 from his publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, to regale an eager nation with the whats, whys and wherefores of a remarkable first two years of international recognition. Quite what they hoped to get in return for their investment is anyone's guess, for as anyone who's ever listened in on a Panesar press conference will know, verbal dexterity is not poor Monty's forte.

Monty's forte is simple. He's a monstrously enthusiastic cricketer with an uncanny skill for spinning a cricket ball. And that, as far as he's concerned, is that. Everything beyond the day-to-day business of preparing for cricket, playing cricket and recovering from playing cricket is pretty much irrelevant - including, presumably, this book.

There's no doubt he's a fascinating character. The first practising Sikh to play for England, the best English spinner since, arguably, Derek Underwood, and among other accolades, he's the reigning Beard of the Year. But if you're after a fascinating read, look away now. There are all sorts of insights that could have been offered in this book, but at every opportunity the bat is raised and the delivery fizzes harmlessly by.

On Marcus Trescothick's sudden departure from India, on the eve of Monty's debut in Nagpur: "He went very suddenly and I don't think that any of us really knew the full extent of the situation." On the Fredalo scandal in St Lucia: "There is no doubt that the business affected the general mood." On Duncan Fletcher's resignation: "Results were disappointing over the winter, and he may have felt he'd just had enough." Really Monty? You astound me.

Clearly this was never going to be a warts-and-all expose of England's post-2005 decline, but at £18.99 the fans who lifted Panesar into the running for BBC Sports Personality of the Year deserved a little bit of insight into the character who has captured their imaginations.

Even Monty's intriguing heritage is given the brush-off. "To be honest, cricket did not occupy much of my early life," he declares in the first chapter, teeing up the prospect of a digression into the family life of a first-generation immigrant family - genuinely, Monty, we would be interested. Instead, ten pages and a few rushed anecdotes later, he is taking 7 for 35 for Bedfordshire Under-15s against Worcestershire, and the die of his career is cast.

A few facts about his personality do seep through. He is more than a touch obsessed by Sachin Tendulkar, he's in gentle awe of Andrew Flintoff (and most of his England team-mates for that matter), he's forever indebted to his original coach at Luton Indians, Hitu Naik; and his adoration for the game of cricket is such that, in perhaps the most candid confession of the entire book, he reveals his despair after being omitted for the Ashes Test at Brisbane. Fletcher took him to one side after the team meeting to give him a pep-talk, but Monty's mind was a maelstrom. "Sorry," he eventually said, "can you repeat that please?"

In between whiles, the book is a plod from one scorecard rewrite to the next, interspersed with some truly extraordinary snippets of irrelevant detail. From personal experience, I know that Monty loves to talk when the mood takes him, but the facts need to be wrung from him, much as his long-suffering ghostwriter, Richard Hobson, must have wished to wring his neck.

And so, when the enthusiasm comes, there's no alternative but to note it down in all its glorious triviality. Take a childhood trip to India for instance - the most interesting thing that happened to Monty was, bizarrely, the sight of a Chinese boy crying in the street. The most "embarrassing" tale that he is able to bring back from the recent World Cup - surely a haven of embarrassment - was the night he turned off his air conditioning and awoke to find the floor and his kit were damp.

It turns out that meeting Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe during the Lord's Test in May was a big moment, as was Monty's first appearance on Question of Sport. "The strange thing was that I didn't feel nervous at all," he says without a trace of irony. And so, after 243 pages of very occasional insight, the question arises as to what Monty might do when his playing days are over.

"You know, that is something I really haven't thought about," he deadpans. "Some players go into the media when they retire. I am not sure that is for me."