CB Fry – The Writer

Charle Burgess Fry was born in April of 1872. He was undoubtedly the finest all-round sportsman of his era and, perhaps, ever. As a cricketer he was one of the great batsman of the ‘Golden Age’ and our own Dave Wilson has written about his life and playing career here and here.

One of Fry’s many talents was as a writer. He was as gifted an academic as he was athlete and, despite seemingly spending his time at university doing everything but academic work, he might still have achieved a first in Classics had not some, on this occasion thankfully short lived, mental health problems not dogged his final year.

Unlike some amateurs Fry did not have a family who could support him into adult life and indeed his father was, essentially, a mere accounts clerk in the Civil Service. Thus whilst the family could stretch to a private school education (at Repton) and a degree after that Fry had to work. Like many others in a similar situation he chose to become a schoolmaster, in his case at Charterhouse.

Fry graduated from Oxford in 1895 and spent three years at Charterhouse. He had done some writing whilst at University but, by contributing articles for publication found I could earn by journalism three times the income for the expenditure of a tenth of the time. He left teaching in 1898.

The first notable effort Fry made were a series of pen portraits that appeared Windsor Magazine. Unusually for the times Fry wrote under his own name and doing so no doubt helped create the interest that brought him enough work to enable him to leave teaching. The risk of doing so was that by making it clear he was a paid journalist he risked compromising his amateur status, and indeed he did stop competing in athletics events where attitudes were rather more unforgiving in that respect than in the worlds of cricket and soccer.

In terms of what sort of writer he was Fry was certainly a good one. In the days before Neville Cardus there tended to be little flamboyance in any sports writing, but Fry certainly had a nice turn of phrase. In the Windsor Magazine article to which I have referred he described Surrey pace bowler Tom Richardson as appearing something between a Pyrenean brigand, and a smiling Neopolitan, brimful of fire.

As well as the Windsor Magazine the Athletic News, Daily Express, Daily Chronicle, Lloyd’s News and Strand Magazine commissioned work from Fry. He also had a hand in his first book in the late 1890s, although he was never formally credited with it. The publication in question is Ranji’s Jubilee Book of Cricket, a wide ranging book that was partly instructional and partly historical. Accounts vary as to just how much of a hand Fry had in the writing of his great friend’s book but a significant part of the narrative appears to be his. Wisden apart the Jubilee Book of Cricket is perhaps the best known example of a Victorian cricket book and it ran to several editions, providing a welcome boost to the fragile finances of Fry and Ranji.

The first book published by Fry himself came in 1899; The Book of Cricket: A New Gallery of Famous Players. This is a large foolscap sized book which was originally issued in fourteen weekly parts and then returned to the publisher for binding. It is an imposing volume containing many full page portrait photographs of the players of the day and numerous other illustrations as well. As a luxury publication many copies of The Book of Cricket were well cared for and, 120 years after publication, a good copy can still be had for less than £50.

1899 was a significant year for Fry’s writing career as during it he became associated with The Captain, a magazine aimed at the schoolboy market. Fry wrote articles on cricket, and many other sports and outdoor pursuits and proved a substantial drawcard. Eventually the magazine were persuaded to put him on a contract of £800 a year in order to ensure he could not write for any other magazines. To put that in context it would be worth about £100,000 today.

The Captain continued until 1924 but never with any great financial success the problem, of course, being that as most of its readership were not in control of any significant sums of money there was little attraction for advertisers. The magazine was however popular and publisher George Newnes could see the potential for something similar that appealed to an adult audience and, in 1904, CB Fry’s Magazine was born. The sub-title, of action and outdoor life, confirm the broad base of Fry’s subject matter and Fry was very much a ‘hands on’ editor of the new title.

The most enduring of Fry’s contributions to cricket literature was published by Macmillan in 1905; Great Batsman: Their Methods at a Glance. It is a magnificent tome containing more than 600 photographs taken by George Beldam. The iconic image of Victor Trumper jumping out to drive is the best known, but the reality is that almost all of the instantly recognisable images of the stars of the ‘Golden Age’ originate from Beldam’s lens.

In his introduction Fry sets out his mission statement; The aim of this book is to answer the question ‘How do the leading batsmen play?’ That he succeeds in that ambition is what makes the book such an important one given that, for almost all of the batsmen featured, the book is by far the best record we will ever have of them, both in pictures and in words. The first and greater part of the book (about two thirds of it) deals with the eighteen greatest batsmen of the era including Archie Maclaren, Ranji, WG Grace and Fry himself.

I make no apology for dwelling on the subject of Trumper. In his introduction to each batsman Fry summarises his subject in a the space of a page or so. Of Trumper he writes he has no style, and yet he is all style ….. he defies all the orthodox rules, yet every stroke he plays satisfies the ultimate criterion of style – minimum of effort, maximum of effect , before summarising his strengths as a wonderful eye, a wonderful pair of wrists, and supreme naturalness, consequent on a supreme confidence that his wrist will never betray his eye. There follow as many as thirty of Beldam’s photographs of Trumper playing a variety of strokes including, of course, that one of him jumping out to drive.

The first is the descriptive part of the book. Part two, which opens up Beldam’s collection of images of some lesser known batsmen, contains what amounts to a technical treatise on the art of batting, told with reference to the photographs. Two years later in 1907, for once not falling out with his publisher along the way, Beldam and Fry produced the companion volume on Great Bowlers and Fielders. Perhaps the fact that Fry was a batsman rather than bowler did not help, nor that it is more difficult to capture the beauty of a bowler than a batsman in a still image, but the second volume did not and does not have quiet the same impact as the first and did not sell as well. What this means, a little perversely, is that in the 21st century, when almost all potential purchaser want both books, the second volume is a little more expensive and rather less frequently seen.

In 1907 there was also a second book published that bore Fry’s name. A Mother’s Son was a novel, co-written by Fry and his wife, Beatie, who was some years his senior. That relationship was an odd one to say the least. The future Mrs Fry was, as a teenager, involved in a major scandal with a wealthy banker (Charles Hoare) and that relationship, on some level at least, endured. Hoare set up the autocratic Beatie with a training ship for naval cadets which she ruled with a rod of iron. Fry, it would seem, played the role of amiable figurehead, but had little involvement with day to day life on the Mercury.

A Mother’s Son was quite well received, although modern critics wonder why. The storyline would have dated badly anyway in the intervening years, but even for Edwardian times the plot lacks credibility. There were probably some autobiographical elements. The central character of the story, Mark Lovell, was an all-round sportsman who on Ashes debut scored a century and took three wickets in an over, and all this before he had played any county cricket. The theory is, inevitably, that Lovell was based on Fry, and there are other characters who are adjudged by some to have shades of Beatie and Hoare.

It was in 1908 that Fry moved to the Mercury and the demands on his time then were such that eventually he was given an ultimatum and required to choose between his role there and the editorship of CB Fry’s Magazine. He chose the former and whilst he was to remain associated with the magazine he took very much a back seat. Eventually the Great War closed the magazine down and it did not appear again when peace returned.

There was one more book from Fry before the Great War, his detailed instructional book, Batsmanship. The book received some criticism at the time of publication as it advocated changes to long established practices, particularly in encouraging batsmen to use their feet. The book has worn well however, and to give just one example in 1998 acclaimed coach Bob Woolmer acknowledged Fry’s influence on his own methods and commented on how far ahead of its time the book was.

After the War Fry became involved with the League of Nations when Ranji was invited to become one of India’s representatives there, and in 1923 he published a book, Key Book of the League of Nations. There were also three attempts, in 1922, 1923 and 1924 to become a Liberal MP all of which failed, albeit in the general election of 1923 by only 219 votes. It was whilst in Geneva with the League that Fry was famously offered the throne of Albania, although the extent to which that was a genuine proposal rather than an elaborate joke by Ranji has never been made entirely clear.

In the 1920s Fry’s mental health deteriorated markedly and in 1929 he had a severe nervous breakdown the effects of which he struggled to get over. Once his health improved he began writing again and eventually made a recovery. After he had done so in 1934 he famously met and was received by Adolf Hitler and, in 1939, he finally published an autobiography, Life Worth Living: Some Phases of an Englishman.

As sporting autobiographies go, particularly from that era, Life Worth Living is a decent read, although it rarely refers to Beatie, and makes no mention at all of his failed attempts to get into the House of Commons nor, perhaps less surprisingly, his breakdown. Something that is mentioned, or at least was until it was removed as late as on its third reprint in 1947, was an account of Fry’s meeting with Hitler in Berlin. Like so many others Fry was captivated by Hitler’s charm

After the second world war Fry continued to do some commentary work, as he had done for the BBC since 1936 and would regularly contribute to periodicals and books by others. As late as 1955, a year before his death at the age of 84, he contributed a prologue and an epilogue to EW ‘Jim’ Swanton’s account of England’s Ashes success of 1954/55. Despite his advanced years and his not having been in Australia for the series it is clear from his writing that the advancing years had done nothing to diminish either Fry’s cricketing intelligence or his writing ability.

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The Cricket Publishing Company

It is now all but forty years since Ronald Cardwell wrote and published what remains the only book devoted to the Australian Imperial Forces team that toured England in the first summer after the Great War. After four months in England the team moved on to South Africa and, finally, defeated New South Wales and Victoria and having much the better of a draw with Queensland on their return to Australia in January 1920. The book had a long gestation period, some six years, during which Cardwell took the opportunity to spend time with the five survivors of the main party of fourteen. By the time the book was published only two were still with us, ‘Allie’ Lampard and ‘Nip’ Pellew. The book, with its distinctive maroon card covers embossed with the AIF badge in gilt was published in a numbered and signed limited edition of 200 copies. The AIF Cricket Team sold out long ago, and is now a scarce collectors’ item.

The first time a book was stated to have been published by the Cricket Publishing Company was four years later, this time a collaboration between Cardwell and Thomas Hodgson. A Cameo From The Past – The Life and Times of HSTL Hendry was a biography of the man who, at the time, was the senior Australian Test cricketer. The 325 card covered copies, very similar in appearance to the AIF book save in dark green covers, were individually numbered and signed by Hendry and by ‘Tiger’ O’Reilly, who contributed a foreword. Again the book soon sold out and copies only occasionally appear on the second hand market.

In 1988 Cardwell’s third publication was a slim 56 page paperback entitled The MCC Tour to Australia 1903/04. This was the first series where the name ‘The Ashes’ came into vogue and a book by England skipper ‘Plum’ Warner faithfully described the successful tour in detail. Cardwell’s booklet was not therefore intended to be a tour account as such. It contains a summary of the Tests in words and figures but its main purpose was to showcase a selection of photographs that Cardwell had purchased at auction. It was produced in a numbered limited edition of 287 copies, signed by Cardwell and O’Reilly. Again it is something that sold out years ago and again copies are seldom seen on the market, although when they do appear the prices are not so high as for the AIF and Hendry books.

In the early 1990s Stephen Gibbs’ monumental Post Padwick tells me that Cardwell produced a couple of small publications privately and are, thus, his only publications I am aware of that do not bear the Cricket Publishing Company imprint. They should however be mentioned for completeness, even though I have never seen a copy of either. The first was on the subject of the evolution of Australian cricket literature and the other on the development  of cricket after the Great War.

In 1996 another booklet titled A Cameo From The Past appeared, this time with the sub-title WA Brown (NSW, Qld, Australia). Written by Cardwell the sixteen page monograph was published in a signed and numbered limited edition of 100, and a further 100 copies two years later in 1998. In addition to author Cardwell the booklets were also signed by Brown himself. Long out of print copies rarely appear for sale.

Also published in 1996 was a limited edition comprising a small collection of the work of Ray Robinson, a fine writer who is clearly a great favourite of Cardwell’s. Robinson was an occasional contributor to the Journal of the Australian Cricket Society and Between Branches comprised a selection of those articles. It ran to 64 pages and was signed by Cardwell, as Editor, and Test cricketers Brian Booth, Gordon Rorke and David Sincock as well as writer Kersi Meher-Homji. Oddly the booklet was still available relatively recently – perhaps a limited edition of 300 was a little too many?

Two small format limited editions appeared from CPC in 1999. The two booklets had much in common and both are scarce and long out of print. The most striking similarity is the number 112, unsurprisingly the number of copies of each publication. The Fitzroy Urchin contained an essay by Neil Harvey on the subject of his debut Test century of 112, followed by a summary of the man written by Cardwell. Booth’s Big Match is similar, dealing with Brian Booth’s first Test century, fourteen years after Harvey’s but also 112. Both booklets have 24 pages and are signed by both writers.

The dawn of the new century saw what I believe was the first book from the CPC that was not a limited edition. The writer was Philip Derriman and the subject clear from the title; The Life and Artistry of Don Tallon. The book is not a bulky biography, and it made up of only 58 pages, but it is a fascinating look at the life of one of the very best wicketkeepers the game has seen.

The following year saw the CPC publish Max Bonnell’s first book, Currency Lads. The book contains biographies of four of Australia’s earliest Test cricketers. Tom Garrett was an all-rounder who played in 19 of his country’s first 27 Tests and Sammy Jones played alongside him a dozen times. The other two men profiled, Reginald Allen and Roland Pope played once each. A full length book Currency Lads appeared in a standard soft back edition as well as a leather bound limited edition of 200, signed by Bonnell and Bill Brown.

Also appearing in 2001 was another interesting small format limited edition. A new edition of Arthur Mailey’s 1958 autobiography, 10-66 And All That, was published and the CPC booklet was a reprint of a single chapter from the book, Opposing My Hero. It is the story of a meeting in a Grade match between Mailey and Victor Trumper. There were only fifty numbered copies of the reprint, signed by Richie Benaud and Mailey’s son. The only copy I have ever seen available is one that, thankfully, I decided to buy – this is a rare one.

In 2003 the CPC returned to the successful Booth/Harvey formula with Morris’s Dilemma, a 34 page essay by Cardwell on the subject of Arthur Morris’s first century at first grade level. In 1939 the 17 year old scored 115 for St George against the University of Sydney. There are no prizes for guessing the number of the limitation of an edition signed by Morris and Cardwell.

The following year the format was similar, although the 29 page Hints To Umpires 1871, a limited edition of 133 copies, is still available. It is the reprint of a short essay on umpiring that appeared back in 1871, accompanied by short pen portraits from Cardwell of a number prominent Australian umpires whose signatures are included, as are loose photographs of the five.

There was another reprint of an ancient piece of writing a year later in A Cricket Match on the Diggers in the Olden Days. The match concerned took place in 1826, and the description of it that the CPC published had first appeared in 1881. There were just twenty pages to the booklet which appeared in a numbered limited edition of 65 copies, each signed by Cardwell. It too is still available as is 2006’s It Started With An Autograph. This one consists of an explanation of Cardwell’s introduction to a sport in which he describes himself as having a passing interest. There are 150 copies, signed by Cardwell and eleven others, including Test cricketers Booth, Dave Renneberg, Brian Taber and Doug Walters.

Another 2006 release was The Fifty Best Australian Cricket Books Of All Time. This one is certainly no longer available and, although I have seen copies occasionally, am certainly glad I got mine when I did as it is now expensive. Bibliography has always been a popular subject and no doubt the short print run, just sixty numbered copies signed by Cardwell and book dealer Roger Page is what has brought about the scarcity. The Mac’s none too positive review clearly hasn’t adversely affected demand.

Into 2007 and the CPC published Cardwell’s James Lillywhite’s XI In Goulburn 1876, a reconstruction of a match that took place in his home town three months before the first ever Test match. The match was between 22 locals and Lillywhite’s side and the edition is limited to 111 copies, one for each run that the 22 managed in their two innings. The booklet runs to 32 pages and is signed by Cardwell and two other men born in Goulburn who have played for New South Wales, Trevor Bayliss and Rob Jeffery. It is still available.

Back in 1993 former Australian off spinner turned writer Ashley Mallett published a biography of the great leg spinner Clarrie Grimmett, a book reviewed very positively by Swaranjit here. I never read that, but did read what amounted to a second edition that was published by the CPC in 2008. Scarlet is certainly a fine book and for anyone wanting to read a standard edition it is still available. Long sold out however is a limited edition of 48 copies, superbly bound in quarter leather with a DVD of Grimmett’s home movies taken during his two tours of England in 1930 and 1934. The limited edition is also signed by each of Mallett, Don Beard, Shane Warne, Richie Benaud, Ian Healy, Arthur Morris and Clarrie’s only son Vic. It was a book that was costly for the brief period it was available, and has doubtless appreciated in value since.

Also published by the CPC in 2008 was The Baggy Green – The Pride, Passion and History of Australia’s Sporting Icon. This was a collaboration between memorabilia expert Michael Fahey and cricket writer Mike Coward. The title is self explanatory and the result a well illustrated and very nicely produced hardback. I have a recollection that at the time a lavish limited edition was mooted but if my memory on that is correct, and it may not be, then I don’t believe it ever appeared. A rather slimmer pamphlet that appeared in 2008 was David Jenkins’ Ken Eastwood – A Life in Cricket, reviewed by the Mac here. A signed limited of 150 numbered copies it is, like the Fahey/Coward, out of print. Even more limited was The Pupil Meets The Master by Cardwell. The fifty copies (ten leather bound) was a monograph on the subject of Kiwi Historian and rugby writer Spiro Zavos and his sole outing in First Class cricket.

Although we didn’t review The Baggy Green by 2008 our review section was becoming established and since then we have had the pleasure of looking at most of CPC’s output so what follows will be an increasing number of links to other pages on the site. In 2009 for example there were two books. The first was Near Death on the Sub-Continent, a biography of Gavin Stevens by David Jenkins, followed by a rather different sort of book, On Tour With Brian Booth by Cardwell. The latter is still available but the anyone wanting to read the excellent Stevens book will need to scour the second hand market.

New books have, in relative terms, come thick and fast in the present decade. 2010 saw two new publications the first of which, Tugga – The Steve Waugh Story by Morris Booth sounds suspiciously like a mainstream title. In fact it isn’t and in fact is something of an oddity. It is only 32 pages and, extensively illustrated. It looks at Waugh’s career at its outset and was aimed primarily at fostering interest in the game amongst children and the proceeds of the book were passed to the SCG museum. The other CPC book of 2010 was a centenary celebration of the St George club by Coward, which is still available.

There were as many as four books in 2011. Three are still available of which one, a history of the Mosman club remains available in a standard edition. John Hiscox’s labour of love also appeared as a limited edition, and that one has sold out. Also still available is Cricket, Quirky Cricket from the pen of Kersi Meher-Homji. It is a 98 page paperback containing a selection of the many unusual stories that Meher-Homji has collected over the years. The last of those 2011 titles is still available and is Stephen Walters’ The World on Tour. This one is a splendid coffee table type production which gathers together accounts of the Test standard sides who have banded together other than as Test nations. It is a superbly illustrated and important piece of work.

Also produced in 2011 was a slim paperback by Cardwell and Irene McKibbin, entitled Bradman At Blackheath, an account of a remarkable Bradman innings in a club match. The book, now out of print, is signed by both authors.

Two collectors’ items appeared in 2012, one from Mallett, The Catch That Broke The Bank and one from Cardwell’s pen, Charlie Macartney in Otago. Both are slim works, the Mallett a leatherbound 14 pages and the Cardwell 30. The latter, as its title suggests, covers time spent by the Governor-General in Otago in 1909 and the 72 numbered copies (some still available) are signed by Cardwell and Glenn Turner. The Mallett book tells the story of Alexander Crooks, who played for 22 of South Australia against WG Grace’s XI in 1874. Crooks was responsible for the catch which dismissed WG in the first innings, and subsequent discoveries of criminal activity in his employment with a local bank give the book its title. There are fifty signed copies, all sold.

Finally in 2012 the CPC published Shock Selection by John Mason. This was not a limited edition nor a piece of new research and for that reason is a little unusual. What Mason does is, so far as is practical, give his own answer to one of those frequent talking points amongst cricket tragics, the best team that can be selected from those whose surnames begin with the letter A, B and so on and so forth. The book is out of print so clearly proved popular.

Four more books appeared in 2013. A particular favourite of this writer is David Parsons’ The New Zealand Tour of England 1973. That one is still available as is a collection of pieces from David Ongley’s dongles blog, Cricket in Cyberspace, as indeed is The Team That Never Played, a collaboration between Cardwell and New Zealander Bill Francis. The background of the book is the   sinking of the Wahine in 1968. As many as 51 of the passengers on the ship lost their lives. Travelling to a tournament with them was the Otago University cricket team. They never arrived of course, but all survived to tell their tale, and to each sign one of the 45 copies of a very attractive leather bound limited edition. That sold out quickly, but the standard edition remains available. The 2013 book that is out of print is No Dazzling Deeds With Bat or Ball – A Centenary History of the NSWCUASA 1913-2013 by Cardwell and Jenkins.

In addition to the books referred to in the preceding paragraph something else appeared bearing the Cricket Publishing Company imprint in 2013, Volume One of Between Wickets, a ‘serious’ journal aimed primarily at the committed devotee of the game’s history. Altogether there have been seven issues of Between Wickets to date. Despite the fact that it is now two years since the last my enquiries nonetheless indicate that the journal is alive and well and that it is hoped the eighth incarnation will appear very soon.

Of the four titles that appeared in 2014 all remain in print save for the ‘special’ edition of Marrickville’s Greatest Day – The Final Match. I use the word ‘special’ because there were only 153 copies printed, and some are still available, but the 23 hardbacks signed by two survivors of the match sold out soon after publication. The book, written by Cardwell, Lawrence Daly and Lyall Gardner concerns the final game of the 1943/44 Sydney first grade competition when, for the first time, Marrickville won the championship with a narrow victory over St George.

The other 2014 publications included two biographies, the first by Francis of Sidney Smith, Cricket’s Mystery Man, that we reviewed here. The other was another Cardwell/Jenkins collaboration, It’s Not About Me – The Brian Taber Story. Both were paperbacks and remain in print.  A leather bound and multi-signed edition of the Taber book did not, sadly, appear. The remaining 2014 publications were an impressive piece of research, Rob Franks’ Kiwi Cricketers Along The Nile, a book that concerns the game as it was played in Egypt during World War Two, with a  particular focus on New Zealanders involved. It runs to 103 pages and, like Booth to Bat and The New Zealand Tour of England 1973 is in a landscape format, which might give some the odd headache as to how best to display/store it.

There were four more titles in 2015, all still in print. We have reviewed all of them. There are two biographies, Greg Growden’s book on Claude Tozer, Bowled by a Bullet, and Jenkins’ Man for all Seasons, a life of Eric Freeman. We also reviewed a collection of writings edited together by Cardwell, The Life and times of the Immortal Victor Trumper. That leaves just one 2015 publication, Substitute Players For England cricket Teams in Australia Since 1861-62 by Alfred James. A 30 page booklet it is one of those publications that once begun has to be read from start to finish. I have to say I am slightly surprised that, the edition being limited to sixty signed copies, it is still available. I cannot imagine that the ten hardbacks, also signed by Gus Fraser, did not sell out long ago.

In 2016 there were as many as seven CPC publications, albeit two of them under a new imprint, The Cricket Press Pty Ltd. Those two both concerned Trumper. One was Victor Trumper at Trumper Park by James Cattlin. To go slightly out of sequence two very similar titles by Cattlin appeared in 2017 and 2018 on the subjects of Chatswood Oval and Redfern Oval respectively, the latter being reviewed by The Mac here. As far as the CPC publications were concerned two of these are books we have already reviewed, Bill Francis’ biography of Barry Sinclair and one by Alfred James of Charles Bannerman. Like the Trumper books both remain in print, although the Bannerman can now only be purchased from Roger Page. The final publication of 2016 was a collaboration between Cardwell and Paul Stephenson; On Tour With The Australian Schoolboy’s Cricket Club, a 32 page paperback with an autograph sheet with the signatures of the tourists.

In addition there were two other small publications in 2016 by way of tributes, firstly to veteran writer Mike Coward and secondly to bookseller Roger Page. At the point at which I am typing this I cannot lay my hands on the tribute that Cardwell and James wrote for Roger, so I cannot embarrass him by disclosing his age, but shall we say he is a man with much knowledge and experience of cricket literature (and indeed an occasional publisher himself). As for Coward the tribute was to mark his seventieth birthday, and there are that many leather bound copies of Jenkins’ 26 page tribute.

After the record output of 2016 there was a slight drop in output the following year, but there were still seven new titles. We have reviewed Harry Graham – The Little Dasher, A Singular Man – Bevan Congdon, The Skipper’s Diary, The Kid From Coraki and Cricket in Verse, and I have already mentioned Cattlin’s booklet concerning Trumper and the Chatswood Oval. Finally, and again on the subject of the great stylist, is What They Said About Victor Trumper. All of the books, except the leather bound version of the Harry Graham are still available.

There was something of a lull in 2018 with only two releases. Firstly Stephen Walters was the author of A Forgotten Adventure. The book is an account of the Australians’ visit to New Zealand in 1945/46 during which the first ever Test between the two countries (and the last for nearly thirty years) was played. In their first innings New Zealand were dismissed for 42, and to reflect that in addition to a standard paperback there was a leather-bound limited edition of 42 copies signed by Walters, five descendants of the participants and Jack D’Arcy, who was to play five Tests for New Zealand in England in 1958. The second was Boys, Briars and a Continuing Sporting Tradition by Cardwell, a history of the Briars club from Sydney.

So far in 2019 there have been three new books. The first was From Bradman to Kohli by Kersi Meher-Homji, a history of Test match cricket between India and Australia. The last few weeks have seen the publication of Touring With Bradman, David Frith’s book showcasing Alec Hurwood’s diary from the 1930 Ashes series and Cardwell’s The Tied Test in Madras.

What is yet to come from the CPC this year? As regular readers of my six monthly articles will know many releases have been mooted in recent years, all of which it is hoped will arrive with us at some point but the next ‘cab off the rank’ is likely to be a biography of Ted Badcock, an all-rounder who played in seven of New Zealand’s first eight home Tests. That should be followed by a biography of D’Arcy, he of the 1958 New Zealanders and another of James Cattlin’s books about Victor Trumper and individual venues, this time Crown Street School.

And then it will be 2020.……………..

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Speed Isn’t Everything

Whilst the well known double act known as Lilian Thomson were laying waste to England’s batting in 1974/75 a young Western Australian made his First Class debut. Terry Alderman was twelfth man for the first two Shield matches of the summer before making a debut in the third, against New South Wales. There must have been some trepidation felt by the 18 year old whose only previous first team appearance had been a steep learning curve. Against South Australia in a Gillette Cup match three weeks beforehand he had taken 0-47 in his eight overs, and Ian Chappell had been particularly harsh on him.

Against New South Wales however Alderman had a much more satisfying time as he ended up with 5-63, including three in a single over. The role call of his victims was impressive too; Alan Turner, Rick McCosker, Ian Davis, Gary Gilmour and David Colley. All had or would go on to play for Australia, and all ended their careers with at least one First Class century. The only fly in the ointment for Alderman was that he picked up a leg strain in the second innings and missed the next few matches and was therefore unable to sustain his momentum.

From then until the end of the decade it is difficult to see why the Australian selectors ignored Alderman as his figures remained good and in 1978/79, the year Mike Brearley’s side humbled what amounted to Australia’s second eleven 5-1, it is surprising that a seasons’s work that brought him 26 scalps at 18.89, did not earn him an opportunity in the Tests.

In his early days Alderman was a youngster who, like many others, simply tried to bowl as quickly as could. He was never consistently successful however and despite his successes was occasionally dropped from the Western Australian side. He soon learnt that it was more profitable for him to cut down his pace and use the ‘Fremantle Doctor’ to assist him to swing the ball and whatever doubts the selectors might have had in the past his, on the face of things, modest 32 wickets at 26.09 in 1980/81 earned him a place in the party that toured England in 1981.

In its preview of the tour The Cricketer described Alderman as; a tall right arm fast medium bowler who swings and cuts the ball with disconcerting ease in helpful conditions, and expressed surprise at his not having previously been capped. It was probably a case of his being selected for English conditions as much as anything, although a stint as a pro in Edinburgh in 1980 had reaped steady rather than spectacular rewards. His competition for a place in the Test team were Dennis Lillee, Geoff Lawson and the main Australian success of the 1978/79 disappointment, Rod Hogg.

Alongside the magical summer of 2005 that 1981 series is one of the most famous of them all, Ian Botham’s heroics being etched in the minds of all Englishmen who witnessed them. In light of that it is perhaps surprising to relate how low key the opening salvos in the series were. The first Test was a comfortable Australian victory at Trent Bridge. Both sides packed their sides with seamers and, the pitch producing uneven bounce and plenty of lateral movement under cloudy skies, Alderman could not have picked a better surface on which to make his Test debut. England were dismissed for 185 and 125 and the Australians chased down a fourth innings target of 132 with four wickets standing. In England’s first innings Alderman took 4-68 in England’s first innings before bowling unchanged through their second effort for 5-62.

At Lord’s the rain intervened and the match was drawn. It was the one game in the series in which Alderman had no real success, taking just a single English wicket in each innings. The big news was a pair for England skipper Ian Botham, who resigned in anticipation of his dismissal. The teams met again at Headingley a fortnight later, Botham back in the ranks and England led once more by Brearley. The story is one of the best known in the game. England were forced to follow on and, seemingly hopelessly placed, checked out of their hotel. Cue Botham’s remarkable unbeaten 149 with the tail. Even then Australia had a smaller target than the one they had reached at Trent Bridge, but of course they failed, courtesy in the main of a spell of bowling from Bob Willis that was every bit as remarkable as Botham’s innings. No one remembers Alderman’s 3-59 and 6-135.

The fourth Test at Edgbaston was another Botham inspired England win, this time with the ball. Australia, after their Headingly nightmare were, if not exactly cruising towards a target of 151 at 114-5, were surely not going to make the same errors again? Cue Botham and a spell of five wickets for no runs and Australia were all out for 121. Once again Alderman’s contributions were forgotten; 5-42 and 3-65.

At Old Trafford England won again thanks to a Botham tour de force with the bat, an aggressive two hour 118 re-establishing England’s ascendancy and once more putting an impressive performance by Alderman in the shade. This time the Western Australian took 4-88 and 5-109. In the final Test at the Oval England, not without a few alarms along the way, managed to bat out the final day for a draw. Alderman took 3-84 and 2-60 to end the series with 42 wickets at 21.26; only Sydney Barnes and Clarrie Grimmett, both in South Africa in 1913/14 and 1935/36 respectively, and Jim Laker in the 1956 Ashes have ever taken more wickets in a series.

Interestingly the Alderman who bowled from Headingley onwards in 1981 was not quite the same bowler he had been in the first two Tests. At Trent Bridge conditions were so favourable for swing bowling that Alderman did not need to depart from his usual methods but, at Lord’s, the absence of any help to get the ball swinging drew his sting. It was Lillee who suggested that Alderman should up his pace a notch or two and try and get some seam movement as well. The veteran pace bowler was right, and it was the new quicker Alderman who appeared at Headingley.

After his success in England Alderman’s next series was in Australia against Pakistan and, at home on his familiar WACA, he took 4-36 and 2-43. After that however his career stuttered and he was unable to impose himself in Tests played in Australia, New Zealand or Pakistan. The next Ashes series was 1982/83 and at that stage Alderman’s place in the Australian side was far from a given, but he erased any doubts when, on the eve of the first Test on his home ground at the WACA, he took ten wickets in the state match. He must have been looking forward to re-establishing himself.

In the event there was little success for the Australian attack after Greg Chappell won the toss and invited England to bat. The Englishmen spent the first day accumulating 242-4 with Chris Tavare, who had recorded a pair in the state match, spending the entire day compiling a characteristically painstaking 66. He did not score a single run in the final hour of the day.

On the second day England and Tavare ground on, but Australia took wickets regularly, eventually reducing England to 357-8. With Bob Willis and Bob Taylor at the wicket an imminent closure seemed likely as the players began to notice the presence of a group of young England supporters who were chanting in the manner of soccer fans and getting more and more intoxicated.

England’s ninth wicket pair proved to be no pushover however and from the final delivery of his forty third over Alderman saw Willis edge the boundary that brought up the England 400. At this stage he had figures of 1-84, his sole success having been David Gower shortly after lunch on the first day. He, no doubt less than happy, walked backwards towards his fielding position at square leg, eventually turning round when he saw members of the group of unruly England fans running on to the ground. They, so Alderman assumed, just wanting to celebrate England passing four hundred.

One of the mob approached Alderman who, at this point sensing trouble, gestured him to keep back and then pushed him when he came into his personal space. As Alderman watched that individual move away another of the invaders ran past him. The contemporary pictures show this man with his arm extended and striking the back of Alderman’s neck. Alderman said later that he made a conscious decision to apprehend the miscreant when he realised there were no police on the ground. The footage rather suggests that giving chase was simply a knee jerk reaction from the victim of an assault, but either way Alderman quickly caught up with his target and took him to the ground with a head high rugby tackle. The manoeuvre succeeded in bringing down his man although it was as well that Lillee and Allan Border were on hand to detain the offender as Alderman had fallen awkwardly on his right shoulder, dislocating it and also suffering some nerve damage.

Rod Marsh signalled the dressing room for a stretcher. One was quickly found and Alderman’s teammates carried him off aided by England physic Bernard Thomas who supported the damaged right arm. Alderman was taken straight to the Royal Perth Hospital.

England skipper Willis, out in the middle at the time of the incident, saw it rather differently to Alderman, concluding; I sympathise with him, of course; he was on a short fuse and when a bloke appeared to have a go at him he exploded. But for all that it can never be the players’ job to deal with crowd invasions.

The rest of the players left the field with Alderman and, the police having now arrived in force, there was a lengthy delay whilst they brought an unseemly brawl to a close. Two officers needed medical treatment and as many as twenty five England supporters were ejected from the ground. The way sporting events were policed in Australia changed for ever as a result of the incident.

Initially it was thought that Alderman would just miss a single Test, but in the end it was a year before he was fit to bowl again. Whilst Pakistan were touring Australia he had a reasonable domestic season and was selected to tour the Caribbean in March and April of 1984. He played in the first three Tests but just four wickets at 92 runs each saw him lose his place for the last two matches in a series where the home side were never really extended. Alderman decided to return to England for the 1984 summer and agreed to join Kent, where 76 wickets at 22.69 doubtless helped restore his confidence.

Arriving home after his summer in Kent Alderman met the West Indies again, this time at home in Australia. For the first Test at the WACA Alderman was recalled, and briefly his stock rose again. A spell of 4-5 reduced West Indies to 104-5 and they briefly looked vulnerable before Larry Gomes and Jeff Dujon rebuilt the innings so successfully that the visitors won by an innings. Alderman ended up with 6-128, but in the second Test he took just two wickets, and none at all in the third and for the second series running was left out of the side for the final two Tests.

Despite dropping Alderman against West Indies the selectors recognised his track record in England and he was duly chosen for the 1985 Ashes tour. At the same time Alderman, along with seven others from the official touring party, had signed a contract to go to South Africa as part of an Australian side led by Kim Hughes. When this news broke Kerry Packer, now a part of the establishment, wielded his power by making an offer which persuaded five of the eight to abandon the rebels and stick with the Board. Alderman was one of the three who was not persuaded, and a three year ban followed.

Injury blighted Alderman’s trip to South Africa but he was back with Kent the following summer and 98 wickets at 19.20 demonstrated that he remained a class act. Had an arm injury not ruled him out of the county’s last two matches he would undoubtedly have achieved the by then rare feat of reaching one hundred for the season. It was then back to South Africa for the second rebel tour. Alderman played in just one of the four ‘Tests’, the last, and took only a single wicket.

Why did Alderman go to South Africa, particularly as, apparently, he was less than enthusiastic when first approached as he had just started a new job? At this stage there was a good deal of dissatisfaction generally amongst Australian players and it is tempting to wonder whether, on reflection, the events at the WACA in 1982/83 had some bearing.

No legal action was ever taken by Alderman in respect of the losses he sustained from his injury. The law was tricky, in that whilst there must surely have been some negligence on the part of those organising the Test because of their failure to arrange anything like adequate policing, at the same time at the point at which he sustained his injury Alderman was very much engaged on a frolic of his own. He did make a claim to the Board’s insurers for the maximum sum available, $20,000, as against the $60,000 he believed he had actually lost. At the time Alderman signed for the rebels it had not been paid, and indeed according to a note in a collection of the writings of Chris Harte that was published in 1991 it had still not been paid then and presumably therefore never was.

There was much disappointment in Kent in early 1987 when it was reported that Alderman did not feel fit enough to play a full English summer, and that indeed after his disappointment in South Africa he was considering retiring from the game altogether. If he was then within a year he had changed his mind as, Craig McDermott having had to withdraw from an agreement to sign for Gloucestershire, Alderman was quite happy to step into his shoes. He was not quite so successful as he had been in Kent but 75 wickets at 22.81 was still a return that his new employers were happy with.

The following winter Alderman became the first of the rebel tourists to be picked for Test cricket again. Only two others ever would be, leg spinner Trevor Hohns and paceman Carl Rackemann. On his return Alderman could not prevent a crushing West Indian victory, but he was certainly the pick of the Australian bowlers. His second Test back however saw him fail to take a wicket having pulled a hamstring, though he wasn’t missed too much as a match haul of 11-96 from Allan Border of all people took Australia to victory.

Recent history between the game’s traditional rivals ensured there was optimism in England ahead of the 1989 Ashes contest in England. In addition Australia had just suffered a 3-1 home reverse to West Indies and, once the tour began, a three match ODI series was, with one match tied, shared. The outcome of the Test series came as a shock to England supporters as Australia won four of the six Tests convincingly, and were always on top in the two draws. Many of the Australians performed well but as big a part as any was that played by Alderman, who became and remains the only man in the history of the game to twice achieve a forty wicket series haul. His final tally was 41 wickets at 17.36.

By now Alderman was the perfect example of the canny seamer. Despite a relatively long run there was no great pace and he simply bowled straight and made the ball move late both in the air and off the pitch. As many as nineteen of his victims were lbw leading to some complaints from England about the umpires favouring Alderman, even Wisden lending some credence to that theory. This writer’s recollection is that this was more a reflection of good bowling and poor batting than anything else. Whilst there can be no doubt that the number of lbw decisions was statistically disproportionate there could be no real complaint.

A further factor is that before the summer was over the English batsmen were certainly lacking in confidence, opener Graham Gooch even asking to be left out of the side for the fifth Test. The, as far as I am aware apocryphal, story took hold that during the series Gooch changed his answering machine message to ‘I’m out right now, probably lbw to Terry Alderman’.

In the following southern hemisphere summer Alderman enjoyed a series of consistent performances against a variety of opponents and ended up with 26 Test wickets at 23.27. That led on to what proved to be his final season of Test cricket, against his favourite opponents, England. He was 34, very much a veteran by Australian standards, although by those of Jimmy Anderson still a mere whippersnapper.

The series turned out to be almost as one-sided as its predecessor, but had it not been for Alderman it may not have been. At the ‘Gabba England began the series by being dismissed for 194, so no obvious change there, until Australia replied and fell 42 runs short of England. As the visitors doubled that lead for the loss of Wayne Larkins all England began to wonder if 1989 had just been a bad dream after all. At that point however Alderman pitched a ball on middle and leg that snaked away from Mike Atherton and took the top of his off stump. He ended up with the best figures of his career, 6-47 and Australia’s target was only 157, which they achieved without losing a wicket.

In fact the ‘Gabba turned out to be a last hurrah for Alderman. By the fourth Test he was out of the side, the Australian pace attack by then comprising Bruce Reid, Craig McDermott and Merv Hughes, although one of Reid’s many injuries meant that Alderman was back for the final Test at the WACA. He did little in England first innings as McDermott took 8-97, but did at least sign off with three wickets in England’s second innings. Alderman was a member of the party that, a few weeks later, travelled to the Caribbean but by then Mike Whitney was in front of him in the pecking order as well and Alderman played only in the fifth Test. Australia went in to the match 2-0 down but did manage a comfortable consolation victory, although there was just a single scalp for Alderman, that of Gus Logie in the second innings, perhaps appropriately lbw. Alderman was therefore left with a career haul of 170 Test wickets at 27.15. The one hundred Englishmen in that tally were rather more inexpensive, 21.17, and in England 83 of them cost Alderman just 19.31 runs each.

In fact Alderman, understandably, had not given up hope of making one last trip to England in 1993. He took wickets regularly in  the Sheffield Shield in 1991/92 and, at the end of that season, was appointed Western Australian player/coach for the following season to replace the long serving Daryl Foster who had been lured to England by Kent. It wasn’t however to be a good year for Alderman. He was fined at the start of the season for showing dissent at umpiring decisions and generally matters did not go well for either Alderman himself, who struggled with injury, nor his side, who made no progress and he had the dual disappointment of missing out on the 1993 tour and losing his position as coach to a returning Foster. It was not surprising when he then announced his retirement from the First Class game. Having left the game Alderman moved into the media and has become an accomplished after dinner speaker, radio commentator and tour and match host.

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Bayly’s Cricketers’ Almanack?

The first cricket annual to appear was back in 1790. Britcher’s Scores ran for fifteen editions. Just over fifty copies, in total, are known to exist. The MCC Library has a full set, but no one else has as only a single copy is known of the first two editions. Britcher is very much the Holy Grail of cricket book collecting.

Other annuals came and went. Lambert and Denison both enjoyed some success, and Frederick Lillywhite, of the well known family, started his Guide to Cricketers’  in 1844, and that was to carry on until 1865, when it was subsumed into John Lillywhite’s Cricketer’s Companion (the ‘Green Lilly’).

Two other annuals launched in 1864. One of them, John Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack, is still with us today. The other, The Cricket Chronicle For The Year 1863 by Captain W Bayly did not survive that first year, and no second edition ever appeared.

The first edition of Wisden was a strange publication. It cost a shilling, so about a quarter of the weekly wage of a manual worker. It was therefore a luxury that only the middle class could afford.

For his shilling the buyer got 112 pages. The first twelve were the almanack itself, many but not all dates being cricketing ones. The laws of the game then took up four pages, followed by seven more listing the dates of the first appearance at Lord’s for the game’s leading players.

Records then put in an appearance, but only in one category, three pages containing a list of just 56 centuries recorded over the fourteen summers since 1850. In three of those seasons there was but a single century scored anywhere, and in 1855 it was Wisden himself who was the sole centurion.

There follows a section entitled ‘Extraordinary Matches’. It is only three pages long, a match per page, and what an odd selection they are. The first was for a match between the Royal Surrey Militia and Shillinglee from 1855, notable for the Militia’s all out total of zero in their first innings. There follows a card from a 16 a side match in Sheffield in 1838 where all the players were over 60 years of age.

The last of the trio was a match from the 1861/62 tour of Australia by a side led by HH Stephenson. The eleven Englishmen beat 18 of Victoria by an innings at the MCG. It was the first match ever played by an English team in Australia, but that apart there is nothing particularly remarkable about the scorecard.

More scorecards follow as Wisden used up as many as 53 pages on the details of all the Gentlemen v Players fixtures, and another 14 on those between the All England Eleven and the United All England Eleven.

Which leaves 16 pages to fill, and that is when the content turns distinctly odd. First are the winners of the Derby, the Oaks, the St Leger and the University Boat Race. Those admittedly sporting items are followed by some more, the laws of Knur and Spell, Bowls and Quoits. That however is the end of the sport, as the book is finished off by a list of the British Societies, of canals, the dates of the eight Crusades, the twelve battles of the War of the Roses and, finally, an account of the trial of Charles I!

Wisden has retained more or less the same height and breadth throughout its 156 editions although, naturally, its girth has increased more than tenfold since the first edition. The page size in Bayly was around the same, if anything slightly smaller, but in its only edition it had 513 pages – it would be the 44th edition of Wisden before that figure was reached.

The introduction to Bayly stated in terms that it is intended that the Cricket Chronicle should become an annual work. Its contents were primarily scores, more than 850 of them. There were matches from all over the world. In Bayly’s words he covered games from Lord’s or Lahore, Kennington Oval or Kentucky, South Wales or South Australia, and there were cards included from such far flung cricketing outposts as Corfu, Mauritius, Toronto, Rio de Janeiro and Valpairiso.

I have not been able to find out very much about Bayly. There was a Captain W Bayly (his rank precedes his name in the book) who was on the payroll of the East India Company between 1837 and 1858, who I think might be our man, but I can find out little more, although it seems a distinct possibility he came from a family with connections to the slave trade in Jamaica.

In terms of the way in which the Cricket Chronicle was ordered Bayly began with matches played by MCC, and then moved on to the major representative matches of the day, those between the Gentlemen and the Players, the North and the South, and extensive coverage of the All England and United All England elevens.

As for county cricket before 1863, of the current First Class county clubs, only Nottinghamshire, Surrey and Sussex existed, although teams did play under the banner of some of the other counties. The concept of county cricket was however still in its formative stages, and it would be a quarter of a century before an organised County Championship began. Thus the coverage of the major club sides, such as I Zingari and the Civil Service had priority, as did the cricket of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. There is also an extensive section (120 pages) on matches involving the Public Schools.

There are no reports as such in Bayly, but there is some comment on a few of the fixtures. An example is the match between the Government and the Opposition, won easily by the Opposition, where Bayly expressed the view that, perhaps, the Government were used up by their mental labours.

Cricket overseas comes towards the end of the book, where there is a place also for single wicket matches, and finally, two interesting sounding matches between sides styled as ‘One Armed Men’ and ‘One Legged Men’. A brief appendix containing past results from the major fixtures such as the Gentlemen and Players and Eton against Harrow then brings the book to a close.

Despite Bayly’s stated intent the Cricket Chronicle never appeared again, nor indeed did Bayly, who has no other entries in the game’s bibliography nor, to my knowledge, did he make any ephemeral contributions to cricket’s literature. The assumption has always been that, retailing at two shillings and sixpence, it was the price that caused Bayly to fail although a contemporary review suggests that, in addition, the format did not prove popular:-

In looking carefully through the printed exploits of the past year, we find scope and verge enough for amendment, both as regards the order of arrangement and the unsettled plan in compounding the scores. If Captain Bayly will in his next year’s edition eschew about one half of the matches ….. we see no reason why the Cricket Chronicle should not take a prominent stand .

As we know the Cricket Chronicle never did appear again, nor was Bayly spotted again. On the other hand Wisden has gone from strength to strength. The second, 1865, edition of the Almanack is nothing like so eccentric as the first and in particular concerns itself solely with cricket. Any businessman would, of course, have kept an eye on the opposition and Wisden certainly seems to have taken on board the critical review of Bayly that I have made reference to.

The 1865 Wisden had grown significantly, to 160 pages of which, in the manner of Bayly, as many as 86 pages contained scorecards from the previous English season, with 21 more following the touring party that George Parr had taken to Australia in 1863/64. There was surely also a dig at Bayly in Wisden’s introduction, in which he expressed the hope that the buyers of his book would find it a readier reference and a more convenient companion than larger volumes of greater pretentions.

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Cricket: What Is the Ashes?

Australia and England are gearing up to go head to head in a battle over the… urn?

The Ashes may be a well-known and highly anticipated event in cricket for some, but for others – specifically those outside of England and Australia, the matches are less than noteworthy. If not rarely heard of.

Don’t be fooled by its seemingly niche existence, though. The Ashes competition is one of the most highly contested, pulse-pounding events in cricket sports today. So popular in fact that in the right circles, being able to talk Ashes about a cricket print on the board room wall could get you in good with the right people. According to the bestselling company Sport Photo Gallery, who sell not only cricket prints but all kinds of sports images, these kinds of images have gained more and more fans throughout the years. As any Ashes fan knows it’s cricket prints are a fantastic conversation piece.

Now, here’s everything you need to know about the Ashes Cricket Competition.

 Where it All Began

Back in 1886, England were trounced by Australia at their home oval. The first time ever defeat shocked the world. Bringing in roiling outrage and humble defeat from all corners. In a real original content meme, The Sporting Times newspaper printed a tongue in cheek RIP article about English football. Suggesting that the ‘death of English cricket’ had finally come to fall, and that the ashes should be sent to Australia. Not to be outdone, Australia ended up burning two bails and placing the ashes into an urn, which they then presented to England when they next toured in the country.

That urn became the trophy that was to be hotly contested for over 75 years, biennially. The original urn was finally taken out of circulation and curated in the MCC museum at Lord’s cricket ground, due to its advanced age and fragility (the original urn was terracotta). While the urn currently in use is just a replica of the original, teams still joyously contend for the coveted cup.

As of 2017, Australia still holds the prize, as they have throughout recent history. The Aussie’s dominated the tournament for 20 years strongly, until England wrestled back the urn in 2005. Since then, it’s been a bit of a push and pull between the two teams, but with England winning the World Cup this year, the country is charged and ready to have another go at bringing the Ashes back home. Of the 70 Ashes series held, Australia has won 33, with England holding 32. 5 are at a draw, so it’s no question that this year’s matches are highly anticipated.

The ladies also get a play at a version of the urn themselves, with the women’s Test series officially being referred to as “The Women’s Ashes” in 1998. Instead of bails, however, women’s teams burnt a bat and placed the ashes into a cricket ball to form their own version of the trophy.

Players Worth Keeping an Eye On

Whether you’re hoping to mount an impressive moment in cricket print, or just wanting to know who to watch, this year’s Ashes match is sure to be an exciting event.

With players like Jofra Archer, who took fans by storm by becoming the leading wicket-taker in this year’s World Cup. Bowling at speeds up to 145kph, Archer creates powerful drama in every frozen photograph. Not to mention causes some serious problems for even the most skilled batsman.

Josh Hazelwood brings the world around to Australia’s bowling prowess by taking 164 wickets in 44 matches. Evening out the playing field between the two teams.

Captain Joe Root, for England, is always a sure-fire spectacle. At just 28 years old, Root has proved himself to be an effective leader and strong all-rounder, breaking records at previous Ashes matches, by becoming the youngest player to score a century.

Australian captain Steve Smith is a smash hit, and not only for staunch Australian supported. Many consider Smith the best batsman in the world. In 2017, Smith reached a Test batting rating of 947, which puts him in the second highest rank of all time.

Whoever it is you come supporting in this year’s Ashes, it’s guaranteed you won’t be disappointed by the action brought onto the ground this year. With an age-old fiery competition and a tough bet on who will take the urn, even part-time fans of the sport are excited to see what this year will bring.

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England vs Pakistan In Print

My last post on the subject of accounts of England Test series against the more junior Test playing nations looks at Pakistan, whose elevation came in 1951, and who played their first Tests in England in 1954.

The hosts meandered in to the fourth and final Test having not really been extended, but denied by the weather anything greater than a 1-0 lead. They took a long tail into the final Test, and then Fazal Mahmood at his very best exploited some favourable conditions brilliantly and Pakistan became the first nation to win a Test in England on their first visit. The English publishers weren’t interested, but as many as four books appeared in Pakistan. The most authoritative bore the name of the Pakistani skipper, Abdul Kardar. The other three, by Qamaruddin Butt, F Husain and Syed Maqsood were all, I believe, ‘ear witness’ accounts only.

England visited India and Pakistan in 1961/62. Although they lost 2-0 over five Tests with India they did beat Pakistan 1-0 in the two Tests played. There would never have been any expectation of an English book, but it is a surprise no sub-continual publisher felt it worthwhile to produce an account of the tour. For the following English summer the Pakistanis visited England for the second time. This time they were beaten, and not even the seemingly indefatigable Qamaruddin Butt produced a book.

In 1967 England entertained and beat both India and Pakistan easily enough. There was no book on the Indian series, but Qamaruddin Butt wrote Oval Memories, this time as an eye witness.

There should, of course, have been an England tour of South Africa in 1968/69, but ‘The D’Oliveira Affair’ made sure that never happened. In place of that tour an ill-starred trip to Pakistan was hastily arranged, and abandoned part way through the last of the three Tests. That there is a book on the tour is something we have to thank Qamaruddin Butt for. Sporting Wickets was the last of his ten books on early Pakistan series. His accounts are an essential resource for anyone researching the history of Pakistan Test cricket.

The 1970s dawned with Ray Illingworth’s side going to Australia and regaining the Ashes, but there was just one book on that tour, and even that contained a number of digressions. It was also a case of England being swiftly brought back to earth on their return. Dominant performances were expected against India and Pakistan, but not forthcoming. In the first series, against Pakistan, England did succeed but only by 1-0 and the winning margin in the third Test was just 25 runs. There were no UK published books, but two modest paperbacks appeared in Pakistan. The Young Ones by Syed Zakir Hussain was the first, and The Fourth Trip: A Match by Match Record of the 1971 Pakistan Cricket Team in England by the similarly named Sultan Husain was the second. The former crops up from time to time, but I have never seen a copy the Husain book.

At the height of the World Series Cricket controversy over the winter of 1977/78 England sent a side out to play series in Pakistan and New Zealand. The absence of a contemporary account came as no surprise, but almost forty years on David Battersby filled that gap with In The Shadow of Packer, an excellent read, and he later added a limited edition booklet, England at the Gaddafi Stadium, to showcase some additional material in relation to the first Test.

Pakistan visited England again in 1978 for a short tour and England comfortably won the three match series 2-0. There was no tour account, although in 2018 another Battersby booklet provided a few memories of the visit.

England’s visitors in 1982 were India and Pakistan once more. Both series were won and there was a book to celebrate with. The previous summer Alan Ross had added his peerless prose to a selection of Patrick Eagar’s photographs of ‘Botham’s Ashes’ and the result had been a great success. Summer of the All-Rounder was the title of the 1982 effort. In 1984 the previous winter’s trip to Pakistan provided part of the subject matter for the Captain’s Diary 1983/84 of Bob Willis

In 1987 Pakistan were England’s visitors for a full five Test summer. They won the series 1-0 and Kim Baloch celebrated with the publication of an account of the tour entitled Imran’s Summer of Fulfilment. That winter England visited Pakistan and lost again. This was the occasion of the infamous spat between England captain Mike Gatting and umpire Shakoor Rana that took a day out of the second Test. Scyld Berry’s Cricket Odyssey takes in the series as well as the one off Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground and series in New Zealand that followed.

After years of decline in 1997 the tour book suddenly seemed to be alive and well again, Kim Baloch’s Summer of Swing being the best of three books, all by Pakistani writers, on their side’s famous victory. The other two were published in Pakistan by Munir Hussain (Summer of ’92) and Khalid Mahmood (Eye of the Storm).

To date the last Pakistan tour covered in book form was England’s trip in 2000/01. Hussain’s El Dorado is a slightly unusual spiral bound book written by, once more, Kim Baloch, but this time assisted by Shuja Ud Din. After that all we have had is a 2017 publication from the seemingly indefatigable Battersby, a slim booklet dealing with the previous summer’s 2-1 win for England.

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Imperial Cricket

As a child I was always told to make sure, before I started to read anything, that I was sitting comfortably. It is not usually difficult advice to follow, but there are a few cricket books where, with the best will in the world, the normal rules have to be disregarded. A well known book from 1912, Imperial Cricket, is one of the trickiest.

The book is always associated with the man whose name appears on the spine, ‘Plum’ Warner’, and in a long writing career the book is regarded as his magnum opus. In truth however Warner (still then a regular for Middlesex) was editor rather than writer. A good deal of the work was done by Frederick Ashley-Cooper, one of the foremost cricket historians of his day and many of whose pieces of research remain amongst the most collectible in the literature of the game. That is not to say however that Warner was not involved in terms of sourcing the many photographs, liaising with the numerous contributors overseas and arranging the lay out of the finished product, however in the latter months of the project even much of that work had to be left in the capable hands of Ashley-Cooper, Warner being otherwise engaged with the MCC in Australia.

The reason for the care that needs to be taken is the size of the book something which, realistically, militates against it being read other than when sat at a table. The book is a substantial quarto, which means its length and breadth are around 32cm by 25cm. The real problem however is the weight. The book may ‘only’ have just over 500 pages, but the paper quality is high, the book almost six centimetres thick and, most significantly, it weighs in at around four kilograms or, to those of us who still prefer the more appropriate ‘imperial’ measures, the best part of a stone.

There are three variants to Imperial Cricket, and anyone looking to buy a copy needs to be careful about this. The content is the same in each case, but the bindings differ. First are one hundred copies bound in white vellum, signed and individually numbered. It would be interesting to have seen a brand new copy of this. More than a century on the vellum, even on the best kept copies, appears somewhat grubby.

Most copies that appear these days are from a subscribers’ limited edition of 900 copies (as illustrated). These are bound in full red moroccan leather with all edges of the text block gilt. In addition to those two editions there was also a standard edition bound in quarter leather and buckram and with just the top edge gilt. Back in 1912 when the book was published the vellum copies cost twenty five guineas, those in red morocco ten guineas, and the cloth copies six guineas. Present day values vary as well of course. The book is not common, but by the same token as a substantial luxury item it tended to be cared for and treasured. Most copies do survive and the book could not be described as by any means rare. John McKenzie’s latest catalogue has a vellum copy at £650. Dealers normally look for between £200 and £250 for one of the 900, but I am not sure they get that price very often. I have seen copies change hands on eBay for less than £100, and copies of the cloth edition (which actually seem scarcer) can sell for less than £50.

So what is in the book? It begins with a frontispiece photograph of King George V, continues with a dedication to the man it describes as the King-Emperor before Warner’s two paragraph introduction, the start of which rather sets the tone:-

Cricket is something more than a mere game.It is an institution, a part of people’s life, one might almost say a passion with some. It has got into the blood of the nation, and wherever British men and women are gathered together there the stumps will be pitched.

The list of subscribers come next, and that begins with the names of three Indian Princes, followed by two Dukes, eight Earls, two Viscounts, thirteen Lords, a Baron, sixteen Honourables, eleven Knights and another 35 men who are given their military rank. Mere mortals then make up the rest of the list, which falls some way short of the 1,000 hoped for, doubtless explaining the observation of Warner’s biographer, Gerald Howat, that the book did not make very much money. To any student of the period there are some familiar names in the list, although only one top quality cricketer, Fred ‘The Demon’ Spofforth. One name not present is that of WG Grace. By this time Grace was coming to the end of his life, but it is still a surprise that the man who was undoubtedly the greatest living cricketer and, therefore, a major symbol of Empire, was not in any way involved. It is not as if Grace was not a book man, as his set of Wisden is one of the most prized treasures of the game’s literature.

In the Britain of 1912 women were still a few years away from getting the vote and it is notable that there is not a single female name amongst the subscribers. Was there no interest from the fairer sex, or was it considered inappropriate for such a volume to have lady subscribers?

The most substantial chapter in the book is the first, which takes up ten per cent of its bulk and is, unsurprisingly in light of the mission statement, entitled Cricket and the Royal Family. It is written by Ashley-Cooper and is an impressive piece of research.

Of the remaining chapters one of the longer ones is a history of the game by Andrew Lang and from there follow chapters about the arts of the game; batting, bowling and fielding. These are not instructional as such and the content is in keeping with the tone of the rest of the book. The chapters on batting and fielding are by Arthur Croome, schoolmaster, writer and Gloucestershire all-rounder, and that on bowling by Bernard Bosanquet, the inventor of the googly.

There are chapters on the MCC, Surrey and cricket at Oxford and Cambridge but neither the question of cricket in the counties generally, nor Test cricket, are examined in detail. The only other teams which attract chapters of their own are two of the famous wandering clubs, I Zingari and the Free Foresters.

The cornerstone of the book however is the contributions from writers throughout the Empire on cricket in all its outposts. There are essays on the game from all of the modern Test playing countries and not unnaturally the lengthiest concerns Australia, and comes from the pen of Les Poidevin, a batsman who played for New South Wales and, whilst studying in England to become a doctor, Lancashire. Poidevin, who also played Davis Cup tennis for Australia, also contributes the chapters on New Zealand and Tasmania.

As well as those countries where the game has thrived Imperial Cricket is also concerned with the less well known corners of the cricketing world and there are chapters on the Solomon Islands, Bermuda, Egypt and West Africa before, perhaps appropriately given that it was British soldiers and sailors who generally introduced the game to wherever it is played, a look at cricket in the Army and the Navy.

As befits a high quality production Imperial Cricket is exceptionally well illustrated. There are six photogravure plates (all with tissue guards), three images in full colour and more than seventy other black and white illustrations. The book is concluded with an object lesson in what a comprehensive index looks like, one of the features that we have Ashley-Cooper to thank for.

The production standards of Imperial Cricket are so high that it is almost a book that might have got away with it if the actual content had been lacking. That that wasn’t the case however is amply demonstrated by the opinion held of the book by the acerbic Rowland Bowen, whose Cricket Quarterly carried many of the most scathing reviews of cricket books ever written. In this case however the Bowen verdict was, it should be the first book to obtain when extending one’s interest back into the past for the first time.

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Will Shikhar Dhawan retain his position? Will Virat Kohli be number 4?

While there is no shortage of India’s options for number 4 and MS Dhoni’s position has not become known in the weeks following the World Cup, this time a new set of questions have emerged to join India’s T20 team. There are 15 months to go before the 2020 T20 World Cup. Beyond three T20Is against the West Indies, here are some issues that will have to be worked through the selection committee and team management.

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Will Shikhar Dhawan maintain its place?

There is nothing wrong with Dhawan’s recent T20 record – he was the fourth-highest run-making batsman in recent matches of IPL 2019 – but India has one of the top three options. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma are almost certain to maintain their spots till the 2020 T20 World Cup and it can be very difficult to keep KL Rahul out with his recent record – the top three in the list of IPL runners for two straight sessions average more than 40 for India. You can try to fit all four in the XI, but this will mean that Kohli or Rahul will have to bat number 4. If anyone wants to make a path, then he has to become Dhawan.

What position will Kohli bat in?

Kohli has batted at number four-six times since the start of 2018 and with no half-century, it has been less than 30 in that position. In that situation, their strike-rate is more than just 115. The question with Kohli on number 4 is that how can India use them if the top three make strong grounds. Will they promote hearty Pandya or Rishabh Pant in the explosive form; will Kohli push this down even further or send it to Kohli? Kohli will have to bat at No. 3, or he will also bat in the IPL as an opener, but before deciding his position India must find out the eleven of their remaining.

When life ends on earth, and the sunsets, a phrase can still echo around the empty universe: “Dhoni will play?” He did not retire after the World Cup and went instead to the Kashmir Valley, and even Rishabh Pant made preparations to take the gloves on his hands for the whole tour of the of West Indies, there is no clarity on Dhoni’s position in the Indian team.

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