How to bet on cricket in-play

Have you ever tried in-play betting on cricket? If you haven’t, you might assume it’s just a vice for spontaneous gamblers; the types of fans who bet on a whim, using their hearts more than their heads. While this might be true of some fans, in-play bets can also be used to open up new betting opportunities.

In-play cricket betting covers plenty of markets. This includes session runs, win index and fall of the next wicket. As you can imagine, cricket odds fluctuate quite a lot throughout the game. You have to act at just the right time if you want to secure the best odds.  However, you’ll enjoy the added advantage of watching the action unfold before your eyes.

Use your insight as a fan of cricket to spot things which might impact the game. Perhaps a respected poster that you follow on a cricket forum has heard news that Virat Kohli took a knock in training, and you’ve noticed he doesn’t look 100% on the field. Or maybe the local weather forecaster advised freak rain will hit Bangalore in the next few days and you can see the sky is getting darker. Adding up these nuggets of information can help you get an edge with in-play bets.

Lay your bets for easy profit

Coupling pre-match bets with in-play cricket odds can help you pocket profit before the game concludes. For example, let’s assume India are playing Australia in a one-day cricket international. You make India strong favourites and are expecting them to be long odds-on when the market opens.

Sure enough, India are favourites, but they are available at 1.90. This should be viewed as ‘value’ because you were expecting them to be much shorter.

By betting early – i.e. several hours or even days before the match begins – you can secure the good price. If thousands of other cricket bettors also think India are too big at 1.90 and start backing them, the bookmaker will be forced to shorten the price. Because there’s often a flurry of bets as the match begins, the in-play odds will often look much different to the earliest price.

In our example, let’s say India have shortened to 1.60 just as the match begins. This implies a probability of India winning now at 62.5%, up nearly 10% from the original quote (1.9 = 52.6%). In plain terms, you have got a bigger price than what the market now predicts.

This is an ideal opportunity for you to lay your bet and guarantee yourself profit without the formality of hoping the match goes your way. In-play margins like this make an incredible impact on a gambler’s long-term profitability.

Cash out in-play

Even if you don’t place a pre-match bet, you’ll often have a chance to cash out your bets in-play to make profit. At most of the top online betting firms, you’ll have a chance to cash out from the moment you place a bet. They won’t be at true odds, though. For example, let’s say you place 10 units on India to beat Sri Lanka. The immediate cash out value should be 10 units – but it will more likely be closer to eight or nine units. Basically, your cash out odds will often be slightly lower than what they should be.

That doesn’t mean you should avoid cashing out, though. Sure, hitting the cash out button a little early might mean you shortchange yourself. But, if you refuse to cash out, you could miss out on profit altogether. In some cases, you can withdraw your stake and keep the remainder on as a bet. This means you can be 100% sure you won’t make a loss, without giving up the entire bet.

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Betway’s Betting Partner Deal with West Indies Cricket

Betway is no stranger when it comes to sponsorship deals with prestigious sports teams and events. In 2014, the betting giant landed a two and a half-year deal to serve as a sponsor of the West Ham United Football Club. Two years ago, the company also sealed sponsorship deals with the Cricket West Indies, Betway’s first sponsorship in the sport.

The premier online casino operator did well from this deal thanks to the branding on all CWI matches, its website and all its social media channels till the end of the 2019 cricket season.

Anthony Werkman, Betway CEO said of the sponsorship that they are, “delighted to have partnered with Cricket West Indies – a passionate and world-renowned nation – as we make our first steps into the world of cricket.” He also added that the company is committed to partnering with a broad range of sports, and guaranteed that the partnership with CWI is going to be a fruitful one.

Currently included in Premier League Darts for its lineup of sponsors Betway Casino. Premier League Darts is a darts tournament in the United Kingdom. The well-known operator also has had sponsorship connections with a variety of horse racing events like the Cheltenham Festival’s Queen Mother Champion Chase and the popular Carl Froch and George Groves boxing match in 2014.

About Betway Casino

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Royal Challengers Bangalore: A franchise not afraid to spend money

Royal Challengers Bangalore have long had the Indian Premier League’s most star-studded team. The IPL club have never been afraid to spend money on world-class cricket players whatever their price. Despite losing three IPL Finals – never winning the league’s top prize – Royal Challengers Bangalore haven’t been conservative with their spending.

The club have some of the biggest players in the world currently including cricket’s highest paid player Virat Kohli. Other star names on the 2020 team include AB de Villiers and Moneen Ali. Royal Challengers Bangalore have not been afraid to spend money and these ex-players show just how the club have gone about their business.

Cameron White, 2008

The first-ever Royal Challengers Bangalore season saw the club snap up Australian Cameron White. He went for $500,000 in the IPL auction which was more than Shane Warne and Ricky Ponting. Despite the potential and price tag, White failed to set the IPL on fire. White was a middle of the order batsman, who struggled with the Twenty20 cricket format. He would later play for the Deccan Chargers and Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Kevin Pietersen, 2009

In 2009, Kevin Pietersen joined Royal Challengers Bangalore as the world’s highest paid cricket player alongside Englishman Andrew Flintoff. Royal Challengers Bangalore purchase Pietersen for £1.1 million at the IPL auction raising expectations amongst the club’s fanbase. Although the club struggled under Pietersen’s captaincy early on in the season, Royal Challengers Bangalore recovered in the second half of the tournament and made the IPL Final, where they lost to Deccan Chargers. Pietersen struggled with the pressure in his debut season as he scored just 93 runs in six games. His follow-up campaign was better as he scored 236 runs in seven matches.

Yuvraj Singh, 2014

The 2014 IPL auction saw the Royal Challengers Bangalore purchase southpaw Yuvraj Singh for a whopping $2.33m. The final fee came due to a bidding war for the player. Singh’s arrival at the Bangalore-based club occurred after his cancer battle, which he won. Royal Challengers Bangalore’s $2.33m bid was a then-record but Singh’s time at the club was short. He was released after the 2014 season.

Dinesh Kartik, 2015

In 2015, wicketkeeper Dinesh Kartik joined Royal Challengers Bangalore for $1.75m. He was one of the most sought-after players available in the IPL auction and his availability came just one year after moving to the Delhi Daredevils for $2.08m. Despite the move to the Royal Challengers Bangalore and hopes of a productive season, Kartik failed to live up to the price tag having his worst IPL season making just 141 runs in 16 games.

Darren Sammy, 2015

Royal Challengers Bangalore made a second poor IPL auction buy for the 2015 tournament as Darren Sammy also failed to materlise as a top all-rounder. Sammy was snapped up and registered as the 10^th highest paid player of the season and was bought for $441,280 after so-so tournament prior with Sunrisers Hyderabad. The all-rounder managed a meagre 13 runs with Royal Challengers Bangalore. Sammy spent both the 2015 and 2016 seasons with the Bangalore-based club before being released.
You can see the full video below from Betway Cricket Online.

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Percy Cross Standing

It was back in the late 1980s that I bought my first vintage cricket book. I saw it, or more accurately them, in a shop in Preston. The two volumes of Cricket of To-day were in wonderful condition and, mesmerised by the contents, I felt I had no alternative but to make the purchase. I realise now that I paid far too much for what are not rare books, but we live and learn, and the books were and remain things of great beauty. It might not have been such a hard lesson had my copy been one that was accompanied by a 24 page insert dealing with the 1903 and 1904 English seasons and the tour of Australia that winter, but sadly it is not.

So what is it that I bought? I now know that this was a publication that originally appeared in twelve fortnightly instalments in 1900 before being bound in its attractive green decorated boards. The first volume is prefaced by some short articles by Robert Abel, Wilfred Rhodes, Digby Jephson and ‘Plum’ Warner before the book proper begins. The second volume has two introductory articles, by Ranji on batting, and England and Notts skipper Arthur Jones.

The bulk of both books is made up by a total of forty chapters on a wide variety of cricket subjects written by Percy Cross Standing. The books are lavishly illustrated in back and white with a number of colour plates as well. Occasionally you see copies in what are, to my mind anyway, less attractive fawn boards with a red design on them. I learned only recently that was a second edition issued by a different publisher a couple of years later. It is a true new edition in that the content has been updated, but despite its comparative rarity I have not noticed any difference in value. 

At the time I bought Cricket of To-day it never occurred to me to try and find out anything about Standing. There was no sort of blurb on the book and it wasn’t until recently, having acquired copies of Standing’s biographies of Ranji and Stanley Jackson, that I decided to try and find out more about him, a task that proved to be trickier than I expected. That I have got anywhere is thanks in the main to the late Jim Coldham, and an article he contributed to the Journal of the Cricket Society in 1986. 

Standing was born in 1871 in Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire. He was privately educated, although Coldham gives no further detail of his youth or about his parents. I can say however that Standing’s father was a lawyer, a solicitor’s managing clerk. In those days in solicitors’ firms it was the managing clerks who did all the work, whilst the solicitors made all the money. An intelligent man Standing doubtless noted the injustice in that arrangement.

Coldham goes on to say that Standing was introduced to journalism by Lord Russell of Liverpool, a newspaperman himself and, for a time, a Liberal MP. It might be assumed, from the use of the double barrelled surname and the obvious affection for Ranji, the Indian Prince, and for future Tory minister Jackson that Standing was cut from similar cloth. Ultimately he may have moved in that direction but certainly as an 18 year old he had acted as assistant editor of the Labour Elector during the London Dock Strike of 1889, a landmark dispute in the development of Trade Unionism and the Labour movement.

At 18 Standing was also a published author, Battlefields of Hertfordshire also appearing in 1889. His passion for cricket then came to the fore a year later when he became, for two years, assistant editor at Cricket: A Weekly Record of the Game. From there he moved on to the Richmond Athletic Union, where he was secretary, before going back to journalism when he became the London correspondent of the Manchester Evening Mail.

As his first book had indicated matters of military history were of great interest to Standing. He watched some of it unfold in 1893 when he travelled to Thailand to witness the Franco-Siamese war, during which time he worked for the Bangkok Times. Other historical subjects that Standing published books on included the Boxer Rising that took place in China between 1899 and 1901, Napoleon’s Empire Makers and Guerrilla Leaders of the World from Charette to De Wet.

The arts were another area of interest to Standing. He wrote two books on the subject of the (then) contemporary Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and one on Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a Dutch painter. In his last years he was the editor of the Contemporary Review, a left leading journal that as well as politics covered the arts, history and religion. Today the Contemporary Review is no more, but it did survive into the twenty first century, until 2013.

All told there were only seven cricket books from Standing. I have already mentioned the two biographies, and the two volumes of Cricket To-Day. The first had been a collection of reports and scorecards from the series of matches between the Gentlemen and the Players and appeared in 1893. Then there was The Cricketer’s Birthday Book, one for autograph collectors. The Jackson biography appeared in 1906 and it would be twenty years before the seventh and last appeared, Anglo-Australian Cricket, 1862-1926, which is a well-written history of the game’s greatest contest.

Despite the fact that he remained a prolific writer until the end of his life Standing’s passing, at the age of just 60 in 1931 was not marked by any fanfare and there was no mention of him in the cricketing press or in Wisden. He remains largely forgotten but, despite his limited cricketing output four of his books remain important ones in the history of the game’s literature. The two volumes of Cricket To-day resonate simply because they are very good. As for the books on Ranji and Jackson their significance lies in the fact that, after Methven Brownlee’s biography of WG Grace, they were only the second and third biographies of major cricketers to appear and therefore helped establish what has subsequently become an important genre of cricket writing.

The first point to be made is that Ranjitsinhji: Prince of Cricket is undoubtedly a hagiography. At the time of its publication in 1903 Standing clearly knew Ranji well, and early in the book he reproduces the handwritten notes Ranji provided for his contribution to Cricket To-day. Later on Standing writes that he is, without exception, one of the least jealous and most unselfish persons I have ever known and makes reference to his unconquerable modesty, indomnitable self-effacement, and well nigh incredible self-control.

In terms of the manner in which it is written the book takes, like most biographies since, a chronological approach. There is an initial chapter on Ranji’s life in India before he came to England followed by a season by season look at his then still unfinished cricketing career. Standing’s narrative is, as far as it goes, a decent read, but he does no more than scratch the surface. We now know, thanks to Alan Ross, Simon Wilde and other subsequent biographers that there is much more to Ranji’s story than Standing was aware of, and more particularly that he was far from the perfect gentleman that Standing enthused about.

The most interesting chapter in the book, for this reader anyway, was that on Ranji’s illness over the winter of 1896/97, and the genesis of his famous Jubilee Book of Cricket. Also of interest is the account of a tour a side led by Ranji made of North America in 1899/1900 but, those chapters apart, it is fairly standard stuff. Outside of cricket there is not a great deal, and much of what there is concerns Ranji’s passion for shooting, a subject returned to time and again.

Standing was clearly an intelligent man and, having spent time in war zones in far off lands, a man of the world. Did he really buy into the angelic portrait he paints of Ranji? My suspicion is that he probably didn’t. Standing’s writing output clearly marks him out as a grafter, and a first book on the subject of Ranji was bound to sell well, and the Indian Prince’s continuing friendship was always going to be useful. In short my expectation is that without any hard evidence to the contrary Standing decided to tell the side of story that the public and his subject wanted to read.

Sir Stanley Jackson had his failings as well, and given that he went on to be a junior minister in Andrew Bonar Law’s Conservative administration in 1922 it seems unlikely that Standing was an acolyte. But Jackson and Ranji were friends and so it is easy to see why Jackson looked a likely subject for Standing.

The way in which The Hon. F.S. Jackson is written is certainly reminiscent of Standing’s earlier book, although it is somewhat shorter. The only real surprise is that, published in 1906, Standing devotes so little space, just eleven pages, to the events of 1905, Jackson’s last season, when he led England to a famous victory over Australia and in doing so topped both the batting and bowling averages.

After writing those two biographies in the space of three years that was to be it for cricket as far as Standing was concerned for twenty years. Perhaps sales were disappointing, or perhaps a man as versatile as Standing simply found that paymasters other than cricketing ones paid more? The man who might have known the answer was Irving Rosenwater who, in a letter to The Cricketer in 1975 indicated that he had accumulated sufficient research on Standing to enable him to write a short biography. It is a great shame that the project never saw the light of day.

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A Complete List of the Called off Cricket Matches and What Bookies are Doing with the Lack of Sports to Follow Because of the Pandemic

The 2019 Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 has been the headlines of any news in the last few weeks. It was last week when the World Health Organization finally called the threat and spread of this virus a pandemic. This makes it an uncontrolled virus for many countries worldwide.
Over 320,000 cases related to this virus are reported to exist worldwide. An astounding number of around 4,000 death toll has been reached. This has affected many people and industries including the world of sports.

Almost all sporting events have been canceled or postponed anywhere else in the world. What follows this is the struggle of the sports betting industry to offer the most odds that they could. Many punters would now resort to going after a casino jackpot instead.
Fans of any sports events worldwide are now probably feeling the same thing as their most-awaited season has become uncertain. The NBA is already canceled and the English Premier League with a big following worldwide is also called off for now. For cricket, here are the following matches that have already been postponed or canceled:

• The India-South Africa 2nd ODI in Lucknow that is supposed to happen on March 15 and the 3rd ODI in Kolkata originally scheduled on March 18 are both postponed.
• The Australia-New Zealand 2nd ODI in Sydney that was scheduled on March 15 and 3rd ODI in Hobart on March 20 is already canceled.
• Two Sri Lanka-England tests scheduled on March 19-31 are both postponed.
• The Pakistan-Bangladesh ODI on April 1 and the 2nd of this test from April 5-9 are all postponed.
• The World XI-Asia XI matches in Dhaka, Bangladesh that was supposed to happen on March 21-22.
• Three South Africa-Australia Women ODIs and three T20s from March 22-April 4 are also all postponed.
• The New Zealand-Australia 3 T20s from March 24-29 are all canceled.
• 3 ODIs of Zimbabwe-Ireland and 3 T20s from April 2-12 are also moved.
• 3 ODIs of Ireland-Bangladesh and 4 T20s scheduled on May 14-29 are postponed.
• The Indian Premier League that was just around the corner and was to start on March 29 is postponed at least until April 15.
• The English County Championship will also be delayed and won’t push through on April 12.
• The Pakistan Super League matches from March 13 will push through but will have no spectators.
• All matches scheduled in India since March 14 are suspended. This includes all other sporting events.
• All matches in the West Indies from March 16 are also suspended.
• All matches in South Africa from March 16 are suspended.
• The Men’s Cricket World Cup Challenge League A between Canada, Denmark, Malaysia, Qatar, Singapore and Vanuatu in Malaysia that should have started on March 16 and lasted until the 26th are all postponed.
• The Men’s Cricket World Cup League 2 matches between United States, Scotland and the United Arab Emirates in Florida that would have to start on April 1-8 are postponed.
• The Everest Premier League in Nepal that was due to start on March 14 is postponed.
• The Sheffield Shield in Australia on March 15 is now canceled.
• The Plunket Shield in New Zealand scheduled on March 16 is already canceled.
• The Dhaka Premier League in Bangladesh from March 16 has been suspended.
• The Pakistan Cup ODI tournament scheduled from March 25-April 24 is postponed.
• The Women’s ODI Quadrangular between Thailand, Ireland, Netherlands and Zimbabwe in Chiang Mai, Thailand will no longer start on April 3 and last until the 11th as it’s all canceled.

This is definitely a long and hurtful list for many cricket fans out there. While there are indeed tests that would proceed with no spectators, this may not be enough for the punters out there. Sportsbooks online, however, have started to get creative to still be able to cater to betting fans despite the lack of fixtures starting this month.

There are now online bookies that would accept wagers on the weather, the result of the elections, about the final song on this season’s American Idol and so on. This may sound something funny to others but for some, it’s still a way for them to deal with the loss of many sports events this season.

For people who would still really want to bet on sports, aside from the tests with no spectators, there still are sports events that will push through in some parts of South Africa and Russia. However, bookies are honest that the odds are just really not enough because as soon as these are released, they quickly go out.

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Why is Jacques Kallis not considered the greatest to have ever played the game?

During the build-up to the 2019 World Cup, the BBC carried out a poll in which they asked their readers to vote for the greatest cricketer to have ever played the game. Now, you’re never going to have a complete consensus when these types of sporting questions are asked but you can always expect the usual suspect to be at the top of the poll. That’s why after thousands voted in this particular one, it was surprising to see South Africa’s Jacques Kallis in ninth position.

Actually, it was more dumbfounding than anything else when you consider that Kallis should probably be at the very top of that list. Of course, everyone is going to have an opinion about these things, some stronger than others no doubt, but in Kallis’ case; the stats simply do not lie.

Let’s look at Sir Garfield Sobers’ inclusion at number three on the list that the BBC compiled. The West Indian played 93 games and averaged 57.78 with willow in hand and 34.03 with ball in hand. Kallis played 166 games with a batting average of 55.37 and a bowling average of 32.65. Kallis’ batting average is slightly less, but then the South African scored a whopping 5257 more runs than Sobers and took 57 more wickets than him. Kallis also took 91 more catches than Sobers did so the proof on this occasion is totally conclusive.

That’s not to suggest for a minute that Sobers wasn’t an exceptionally good player, he was, only, the numbers say Kallis was slightly better. Sobers can also count himself unlucky as he should fall in just behind Kallis in the list at number two given that all-rounders contribute so much more to the end result of a game than batsmen do. In the BBC’s list, Don Bradman was voted the greatest with Sachin Tendulkar in second.

25534 international runs
577 international wickets
338 international catches

Happy birthday to Jacques Kallis, perhaps the greatest all-rounder in cricket's history pic.twitter.com/61DK8zo0uh

— ICC (@ICC) October 16, 2019

The Australian and Indian may have scored over 22,000 Test runs when you add their tallies together but they only contributed 48 wickets and 147 catches between them. Kallis scored 13289 and took 292 wickets as well as taking 200 catches. In many ways, Kallis has almost single-handedly outdone what both of these men have achieved in the game, yet he finds himself at ninth on the list? Outrageous.

You could argue that Kallis’ ranking could have something to do with the fact that South Africa didn’t ever win a World Cup during his career but then, neither did Australia when Bradman played or West Indies when Sobers did. In fact, Tendulkar is the only man in the top three to have ever won a World Cup after he did so with India in 2011 on home soil.

Incidentally, Virat Kohli was part of that team too and you get the feeling that the 31-year-old will be towards the top of that list at the end of his career should India also win the T20 World Cup in Australia this year. The Indians are one of the frontrunners in the betting and look like the team to beat when the action commences down under. In fact, punters who want to know more about how cricket works with regards to the best betting websites in India can have a look and then get a better idea of how likely the Indians are to win that tournament.

Is Sky Sports' newest #CWC15 pundit Jacques Kallis the best cricketer ever? Retweet for yes, favourite for no. pic.twitter.com/CtZq3FZWP9

— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) March 12, 2015

Sadly for Jacques Kallis, he will only be there as a batting coach for the Proteas with the chance of winning silverware as a player long gone these days.

The more you look at it, the more it seems unlikely that South Africa’s favourite cricketing son will ever get the recognition that he truly deserves. Having said that, Kallis’ numbers will never be erased and are very unlikely to ever be beaten, so the evidence will forever be there that he was indeed the greatest cricketer to have ever played the game.

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England set for Trial by Spin

England’s test cricketers eventually won a close-fought series with South Africa that gave Joe Root’s team a much-needed boost in the World Test Championship. There were many positives from the initial leg of the tour including debut international centuries for Dom Sibley and Ollie Pope while England’s seam attack was supplemented in the final two matches by the blistering pace of Mark Wood.

 

A 3-1 series win was no less than England deserved but as the test team moves on through a busy year, the next tour will provide very different challenges. Sri Lanka are the opponents for two tests in March but can England come through their trial by spin or will the hosts prevail on those turning wickets?

 

Predictions

 

The tourists will have to make do without key pacemen Jofra Archer and Mark Wood who are both ruled out through injury. Opening batsman Rory Burns also remains on the sidelines but England are expected to come through the tests with little concern.

 

If we look at the early betting, cricket markets show England as clear favourites and recent success in Sri Lanka is driving down the visitors’ price. As we’ve seen, however, there are some key players missing from the touring party so can the hosts capitalise?

 

Comfortable Outings

 

It’s less than 18 months since England were last in Sri Lanka and the tour ended in a comfortable series win for the visitors. Traditionally, this has been a difficult place to come and get a result but since the Sri Lankans lost some giants of the game, they haven’t been quite the same force in World Cricket.

 

To be fair to the host side, losing four world class players at similar times was always going to lead to a rebuilding process. Muttiah Muralitharan, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan would have walked into any test side during their pomp but several years on, the current squad is still struggling against the bigger teams. England duly completed a 3-0 series whitewash in November 2018, and many are expecting a similar outcome.

 

Key Men

 

When England travel to Sri Lanka it’s all about the bowling attacks on either side and, more specifically, the spinners. When Joe Root’s men came here at the end of 2018, James Anderson and Stuart Broad were mere bystanders as the slow men accepted the bulk of the responsibility for taking 20 wickets.

 

The obvious point to consider here is a complete change in personnel. Back in 2018, England played three spinners in Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid and Jack Leach but only the latter was retained by the selectors for the upcoming tour.

 

Leach may well make the starting XI but his selection will be based on experience rather than current form. The amiable left hander became a national hero for his batting in 2019 and, as his bowling figures fell away, illness in South Africa handed an opportunity to his Somerset colleague Dom Bess. A five-for in the third test at Port Elizabeth means that Bess will surely be an automatic pick for Sri Lanka, leaving Leach and the untried Matthew Parkinson to battle for one more spinner’s berth.

 

England will presumably then use Joe Root and possibly Joe Denly to provide spinning back up after both men claimed key wickets in South Africa.

 

No Concerns

 

At the start of that South African tour, England’s concerns revolved around a suspect batting line up that had produced a number of embarrassing collapses. Suddenly, with Sibley and Pope scoring maiden tons and Rory Burns to come back into the side this summer, the alarms are subsiding.

 

Joe Denly also battled at times but the Kent man is under pressure from Keaton Jennings who returns to the squad. Jennings is a specialist player of spin who made 146 on the previous Sri Lankan tour and he could slot back in for this mini-series.

 

Opponents Sri Lanka are far from a dominant force but they will provide challenges. All rounder Angelo Mathews shows signs of returning to his best but the spin attack that was once so potent is likely to struggle against a resurgent England side. The tourists should come through but the one question mark is over that new-look attack and whether Bess and Leach / Parkinson can emulate the successes of 2018.

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“The Complete Cricketer”

Employment as a coach once his playing days are over has always been the likely destiny of a professional cricketer. One such was Albert Knight of Leicestershire. Knight joined the playing staff of the county of his birth in 1895, by which time he was 22. He left the staff in 1912 and became the cricket professional at Highgate School in North London where he worked for many years. Later on he moved to Belvedere College in Dublin where he contributed much to Irish cricket. On retirement he returned to London and was 73 when he died in 1946. His final years cannot have been the happiest of his life, his wife having died in 1940, and his only son a year later.

As a cricketer Knight was a right handed batsman. AA Thomson described him thus; his batting was unencumbered by frills, but strong and solid, attuned to the difficulties of the situation. With Leicestershire being one of the weaker counties throughout his career his ‘situation’ was generally a challenging one. His strengths were on the off side of the wicket which is where he scored the majority of his runs. He was much valued in his home county, Brian Chapman in a piece in the 1964 edition of Wisden describing him as; a boyhood hero, of the flashing square drive, the punitive throw-in and the unforgettably blue eyes, adding that he seemed somehow remote from other men, yet one of the originals of the game. One of a number of foibles was to, frequently and genuinely, forget the christian names of his teammates.

Knight was also a strict methodist and, prone to nerves before going out to bat, would often pray. That habit was, unsurprisingly, wont to cause some some storytelling amongst his fellow cricketers, and on one occasion the amateur fat bowler from Lancashire, Walter Brearley, is said to have called on the MCC to outlaw praying at the wicket as an unfair practice.

There was no spectacular start for Knight. It was to be his third season before he recorded a century, and his fifth before he scored 1,000 for a season. He repeated that for the next four summers before, in 1903, raising his game considerably and totalling 1,834 for the season at 45.85. Selected to represent the Players against the Gentlemen at Lord’s he took the opportunity to score a century, an innings which doubtless went a long way towards earning him n

a call to join the party that travelled to Australia under ‘Plum’ Warner for the 1903/04 Ashes series.

England won that series 3-2, although victory was guaranteed after the fourth Test. For Knight it was not a successful trip. He appeared in three Tests and managed five single figure scores in his six innings including a pair in the dead rubber at the end. His one highlight, and it was an innings that tipped that crucial fourth Test in England’s favour, was his unbeaten 70 in the first innings. Without it England would surely have lost, their eventual total with his contribution after winning the toss and choosing to bat being a modest 249.

On his return to England Knight still managed to average a tic over 40 in 1904, but he never touched the heights of 1903 again and did not add to his three caps. In 1912 he had a strange final season. At Bramall Lane he made 147 against a Yorkshire attack that comprised George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes, Schofield Haigh, Alonzo Drake and Major Booth, yet the rest of the summer brought him just 677 runs at 17.82. He decided enough was enough, and accepted the offer of the coaching job at Highgate.

There was one other string to Knight’s bow however, and that is the reason why he gets a post in A Bibliophile’s Blog. Knight wrote a book about the game in 1906. Published by Methuen the book’s title is The Complete Cricketer. In its obituary of Knight Wisden described the book as grandiose in style, containing much startling metaphor and in 1999 in his seminal A Social History of English Cricket Derek Birley described it as a masterpiece of its kind, stuffed full of learned observations in weighty prose.

And what of contemporary opinion? Whoever reviewed the book for Cricket – A Weekly Record of the Game began the review with; the literature of the game is distinctly the richer by the publication of this most fascinating and interesting volume, which will probably become a classic. ‘Plum’ Warner reviewed the book in the Westminster Gazette, and expressed the view that The Complete Cricketer is the best book that I have read on our national game, and its many and complicated problems.

The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News waxed lyrical in similar vein, stating that of books that profess to survey the summer game in all its aspects, it is the best that has ever been written. As for the Birmingham Daily Gazette that pronounced Knight’s debut volume a literary monument which, perhaps, more than any other so far produced will stand for future generations as fully representative of the great English pastime of the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods.

Given such a positive reaction why did Knight never write another book? and why didn’t he make a living from his writing rather than by coaching? The question also arises as to why The Complete Cricketer does not, as predicted, rank as one of the classic texts of the game?

I have not been able to find out very much about Knight’s background, but his father was employed in the textile industry as a framework knitter, so his was a working class upbringing. I know not at what age he left school, but in the 1891 census, at 18, he is described as a carpenter, and a decade later, although he has added his status as a professional cricketer, he is still also described as a joiner. After that he did start writing, but clearly only a freelance basis, clearly indicating that however lofty a writer’s reputation might be that a cricket professional at a public school was a rather more secure way of earning a living after leaving the county game.

It would seem that Knight’s education was secured through his own efforts. An insight is given in the Nottingham Evening Post in 1905 when, in an article on Knight’s benefit match, the writer says of Knight he is a cricket student, and in recent times one able to write on it in graceful English; a charming companion, and something of a natural philosopher. He would rather discuss the old Greek poets and ancient theology than such things as cricket tables and records. Knight’s writing is littered with references from literary classics, mainly ancient but some modern as well.

When the Athletic News reviewed The Complete Cricketer in 1906 its reviewer described Knight as; self educated, he writes with poetic fancy, with Tyrtaean fire, and with a forcible lucidity ……. Dame Nature has endowed him with a happy expressive eloquence and the eminence to which he has climbed as a thoughtful and graceful writer is a tribute to his powers of observation and industry.

So what is this style of writing that Wisden’s obituarist and others commented on? It has to be said that the Knight style is unique. In The Complete Cricketer he wrote of the great Australian batsman; in Victor Trumper we have seen the very poetry and heard the deep and wonderful music of batsmanship. Not the structures of a great mentality, not the argument of logic, but a sweet and simple strain of beauty, the gift of the Gods alone.

Later on in the book he looks at some pressing issues in the game, one of which was the draconian qualification rules which, in a wholly arbitrary way, worked to restrain the ability of professional cricketers to play for county clubs. As a paid player himself Knight was obviously opposed to these, beginning his argument with; we do not confine the operations of our great native surgeon to a purely local anatomy, nor the spiritual ministrations of our vicar exclusively to his parish, nor the wonderful voice of our budding Patti to the concerts of the neighbourhood.

I could go on, but for the sake of brevity will not include too many quotes, so will move on to my remaining question, as to why The Complete Cricketer is a forgotten book today.The only reason I can think of is that over the years it has been pigeon holed as an instructional book, always the cinderella genre of the world of cricket literature. In support of that contention I place in evidence two exhibits – first is CJ Britton’s little 1929 treatise, Cricket Books – The Hundred Best, which mentions The Complete Cricketer right at the end in a short list of titles under the heading ‘Technique’. Now not too many read Britton’s book today, but the mighty tome that is Padwick repeats that categorisation so that anyone new to the literature of the game will, understandably, assume they can safely pass Knight’s book by.

Of course Padwick and Britton both knew what they were writing about, and pages 43-194 of The Complete Cricketer do comprise chapters entitled Batting, Bowling, Fielding and Captaincy, but there is a great deal more to the book than that and those chapters themselves go well beyond the remit of the purely technical instruction that generally represent the content of such books.

As to what else is present the first 43 pages contain a history of the game. Having acknowledged the assistance of the leading historian of the day, FS Ashley-Cooper, this is certainly authoritative even if it broke little new ground.

The chapter on ‘Captaincy’ is followed by one on ‘Umpiring’, not a subject that had been dealt with in very many books at that time. Knight then moves on to a 29 page chapter on playing cricket in Australia. It is clearly inspired by his experience as a member of Warner’s team, although it is anything but a conventional account of the tour.

Knight moves on to dwell for 37 pages on the subject of ‘Players of the Past and Present’ made all the more interesting by virtue of his having played with or against many of those to whom he makes reference. Perhaps the most impressive chapter is however the final one, the content of which I have already made reference to. ‘Modern Cricket and its Problems’ looks at the qualification rules, the amateur/professional divide as well as the structure of the county game and how it was run in Knight’s time. Over 46 pages he also discusses subjects as diverse as the leg before wicket law, illegal bowling, artificial wickets, fielding standards and the problem of slow play.

Page 328 is not quite the end however, as there are then a couple of appendices. The first and less interesting is the laws of the game. The second however is fascinating, being a glossary of cricketing terms. It is certainly comprehensive and most of the words defined over 16 pages are familiar, but Didapper, Fub, Incommode, Nips, Tice and Trealer were new ones on me.

And even that is not quite the end as there is then as comprehensive an index as I have ever seen in a cricket book and, finally, as was not unusual at the time, a 40 page catalogue of the wares of the publisher, Methuen. To book lovers it was probably interesting in 1906, more than a century later it is a fascinating glimpse at what was being read in Edwardian times.

So how easy is it to track down a copy of The Complete Cricketer? Personally I hope that my audience is such that it is about to become a lot harder, and that this excellent period piece does now come to be recognised as the classic it undoubtedly is. Realistically however at the moment this one is neither rare nor expensive although I should perhaps caution anyone interested in the book to remember that a 1925 book called The More Compleat Cricketer by another Knight, this time Donald of Surrey and England, is a completely different book.

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Cardus at Shrewsbury

One of the several odd incidents in the life of Neville Cardus was his spell as assistant cricket coach at Shrewsbury School (1912-16).

He wrote that he was recruited on the basis of good bowling averages in club cricket in Manchester. Needless to say, no such averages have been found!  We know something of his abilities as a playing cricketer (he specialised as an off-spinner) as I found eight scorecards of matches he played in after joining the Manchester Guardian, and it’s quite clear that he was prone to exaggerating his skill as a player. He must have already had a good command over the English language to write, successfully, an application for the coaching job.

When Cardus joined Shrewsbury in 1912 the senior coach was Walter Attewell, much older and more experienced than Cardus, though not as good a player as his cousin William Attewell, which was who Cardus wrongly thought his senior was.

We read in Cardus’s Autobiography of a change in senior coach in 1913. Cardus had the year wrong – it was 1914 – but the man was right: Ted Wainwright, who was also vastly more experienced than Cardus, having had a first-class cricket career that spanned 1888-1902, playing for Yorkshire, and five Tests for England. Cardus reckoned that he “could spin the widest off-break I have ever seen”. There is evidence that Cardus was able to produce good turn from his own bowling, perhaps the result of learning from Wainwright.

In 1912, Cardus’s first year at Shrewsbury, Wisden recorded that the school probably had a better season than their results showed, including innings defeats to Rossall and Uppingham. They had a moderate season in 1913, winning four and losing four matches, while drawing three. Thereafter, an improvement was clear: the next year was “splendid”, winning five matches, losing one and drawing five. The slimmer wartime volumes of the following two years had no specific report on the school, although they look to have competed well.

The good results for the school appear to have reflected the impact of Wainwright. His first year at the school in 1914 coincided with “the turning point of Shrewsbury’s fortunes” and he was still there in 1917, when Shrewsbury were unbeaten in school matches and, according to Wisden, were “one of the sides of the year”, this after Cardus had departed. Wainwright was to die in 1919, aged 54, and two articles in the Manchester Guardian that year are worth recording. One, in May, expressed the view that Wainwright’s work “was so admirable that the team rapidly developed from mediocrity into one of the best amongst the public schools.” His obituary in October included, “He was rather more advanced than most professional coaches in schools in that he strongly advocated back-play.” It is reasonable to think that these items were written by Cardus, paying tribute to the coaching skills of his superior.

Wainwright may well have helped improve the understanding of cricket of not only the boys at Shrewsbury but also their assistant coach. It would serve Cardus well.

The above is based on the second edition of ‘Cardus Uncovered’, now available at £10 plus p&p from whitethorn.range@gmail.com

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Best Cricket Captains in History

With a thirteenth season of the Indian Premier League just around the corner, we’ve decided to take a close look at the best captains this sport has seen. Since there’s no denying that the IPL is the best T20 league, we can easily consider these players as the best in the world as well. So, no matter if you are looking for some cricket-related action to make the wait easier or you want to get some more info on the big names of this sport, this article is for you.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

‘Thala’ Mahendra Singh Dhoni is one of the best captains the IPL has ever seen. He gets the first spot in our list not just for the three IPL trophies and countless International achievements, but also for being an incredible role model both on the field and off it. As a matter of fact, ‘Thala’ means “leader” in Tamil so it’s easy to understand why his fans love to use this nickname when referring to such an accomplished player in the history of Indian cricket. He won the IPL with Chennai Super King in 2010, 2011, and 2018 and holds an incredible 60% win record.

Rohit Sharma

Another huge player that needs no introduction, Rohit Sharma lead the Mumbai Indians to success three times during his captaincy. Winning 2015, 2017, and 2019 IPL titles is not the only huge performance for Rohit as he is also a key player for the Indian national cricket team. Nicknamed “Hitman” for his efficiency on the field that also brought him the ODI Cricketer of the Year earlier this year, Sharma will lead the Mumbai Indians in another adventure for the title this season.

Cautam Gambhir

After starting his professional career at the Delhi Capitals, Cautam Gambhir reached the peak of his career after he was appointed captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders. Through his amazing performances, he did not only conquer the fans, but he also gained huge respect from the owners of the club as well. During his reign with the Knight Riders, the team won the 2012 and 2014 IPL editions and with a win percentage of over 55%, he scores very high among the best cricket captains of all time.

Virat Kohli

Besides his leadership skills, Virat holds another very interesting statistic to his name. He is the only player in this list to play only for a single team during his entire IPL career. After becoming captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Virat Kohli continued to impress on the field and lead his team in no less than 110 games. Even though the team did not always win, the Royal Challengers Bangalore being one of the two teams to never win the IPL despite being present in all twelve editions, the skipper has always encouraged his teammates and made the difference when needed.

Shane Warne

Often referred to as the Wizard of Spine, Shane took part in the first season of the IPL with a double role. Acting as both coach and captain for the Rajasthan Royals, Shane Warne lead his team to victory in 2008, a performance that stunned the cricket world as the Royals were considered the underdogs when compared to their opponents that had many big names. Warne captained the Royals in 55 matches and the team won 30 of them. Even though they couldn’t manage to replicate the success from the inaugural edition of the IPL, the Royals are willing to give everything in this new season.

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Whitington and Miller, or Miller and Whitington?

Richard (‘Dick’) Whitington was a useful batsman who played First Class cricket between 1932 and 1946, most notably opening the batting for Australia in each of the five ‘Victory’ Tests in 1945. Overall his record is a modest one, but a career average of more than 32 is respectable enough. Outside the game Whitington qualified as a lawyer before the war. When peace arrived and his time in the services ended he was persuaded to join the Sydney Sun as a cricket writer.

Keith Miller on the other hand was a top class batsman and, after the war, fast bowler as well. One of the handful of sporting superstars of his era he still however had to earn a living and had some fairly mundane clerical jobs before the war. Afterwards, despite his success in the 1946/47 Ashes series Miller struggled to find work and at one stage signed a contract to play league cricket in England. Realising that their prize all-rounder might be about to be lost to the country business rallied round and work was found for Miller who, eventually, found himself sharing an office with his friend and ‘Victory’ Test teammate Whitington.

It would not be long before the idea of the pair collaborating on a book was first mooted. Whilst in England with Bradman’s ‘Invincibles’ in 1948 Miller had met the owner of Latimer House Publishing and on being approached the company readily agreed to publish the book, the success of which was such that they put into print another five in succeeding years.

The first of those collaborations appeared in June of 1950. Cricket Caravan did not deal with the Australian tour of South Africa in 1949/50, although it did have chapters on the 1946/47 Ashes series and the Indian leg of the Australian Services tour of 1945. That apart a third of the book was taken up with essays on Donald Bradman, one of which was credited to Miller although it seems likely it was more a case of Whitington marshalling Miller’s thoughts for him. Years later when asked about the books Miller would generally answer with words to the effect of I must get round to reading one some day.

A telling passage appears right at the beginning of Cricket Caravan, Whitington contributing a foreword that he began with; What Keith Miller will say when he finds I have slipped this foreword into our book without consulting him I do not know. In truth Miller almost certainly had not noticed, and if he had it is unlikely he much cared. His thoughts on those half dozen pages on Braddles apart it seems unlikely he provided much besides his name. Miller nonetheless enjoyed equal billing, his image appears on the dust wrapper and in ten of the thirteen photographs. The others are one of Whitington and two of Bradman.

The 1951 book was Catch! An Account of Two Cricket Tours. The beguiling image of Miller’s cover drive that famously decorated Robert Menzies’ office appears on the jacket and in the frontispiece. The book has a foreword from Miller’s great friend Denis Compton. For once there are no digressions, the book dealing with the Australian visit to South Africa of twelve months before, and the 1950/51 Ashes series.

Straight Hit! appeared in 1952 and in part dealt with the West Indies visit to Australia in 1951/52. In addition there was a pen portrait of Miller by Whitington, and a collection of other essays two of which carry Miller’s byline. The cover illustration is Miller with the bat and there is a very brief foreword from Duleepsinhji.

Bumper appeared just in time to coincide with the Australians arrival in England for the 1953 Ashes. This was the first time Miller appeared on the cover in bowling mode. In addition Miller’s name dominated the dust jacket. If the extent of the authors’ respective contributions were proportionate to the disparity in the size of the fonts used this book would certainly have been Miller’s.

The foreword to Bumper was provided by Menzies, who openly states that the request to provide it had not been accompanied by a copy of the manuscript. In fact it may be that Miller saw none of the book either, as he certainly did not read in advance the chapter in the book that was critical of the tactics of his Test captain, Lindsey Hassett.

As the title suggests there was much about fast bowling in Bumper, and a good deal of its contents represented a preview of the forthcoming Ashes series. In addition the closing sixty pages of the book were taken up with an account of the visit of the unfancied 1952/53 South Africans to Australia, a series from which the visitors emerged with an unexpected draw.

It was the following year’s book, Gods or Flannelled Fools, that contained an account of the 1953 Ashes. The title refers to the first part of the book, a series of pen portraits of players through the ages. Once more it is Miller the bowler who appears on the cover and the use of upper case letters for his surname gives the impression of his being the main contributor to the book, despite the lower case letters used for Whitington’s name being of the same font size.

The foreword to Gods or Flannelled Fools was provided by the conductor of the Manchester Halle Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli. Unlike his predecessor, Menzies, Barbirolli did read one chapter of the book, but only one.

The final Miller/Whitington collaboration appeared in 1955, Cricket Typhoon. Miller with bat in hand adorned the cover of a book in which the authors’ names went back to appearing in the same font and size, albeit with Miller’s name first. As the title implies the book is concerned with the famous Ashes series of 1954/55. The first half of the book is an expansive and discursive preview of the series, and the second half an account of England’s 3-1 victory. This time there was no celebrity foreword but, and this is for twenty first century readers the most interesting aspect of the book, there is a closing chapter on pace bowling from the then octogenarian CB Fry.

A few weeks after their defeat at the hands of England the Australians were off to the Caribbean. Although the home side were confident the Australians won the series comfortably but there was to be no book from Miller and Whitington this time. It is not entirely clear why the pair fell out but the generally accepted version is that, vice-captain of Australia in the series, Miller was not prepared to give as much inside information to Whitington as the latter felt he should. Given the problems that cricket has had subsequently with players talking to those outside their team it is a great relief for those who champion the integrity of the sport’s past that Miller should, despite commercial considerations, have not been prepared to discuss matters such as team selection and tactics with Whitington.

Cricket Typhoon was not quite the end of an era because, later in 1955, a Keith Miller Companion was published, a book which amounted to an anthology of the previous books. Such a long running collaboration between star player and journalist is unique in cricket literature. Was it worthwhile? The books selling point was the dressing room gossip and the general tone of the writing. The authors favoured attacking cricket, but there was no great analysis, and the sort of revelation that was disclosed, for example that West Indian mystery spinner Sonny Ramadhin needed to bowl on a full stomach to give of his best, is less than fascinating to modern readers.

At the time they were published the Miller/Whitington books were well enough received, but there were no glowing reviews and, amidst so much competition in the cricket book boom of the early 1950s there is nothing about the books that makes them stand out in literary terms. Nonetheless they do still seem to have a market and whilst any one of them can be obtained for just a few pounds on the second hand market they do appear to be easier to sell than many of the books with which, when new, they competed.

Miller’s last series as a player was in England in 1956 by which time he was 36. After that he signed a lucrative contract with the Daily Express and his outspoken views were popular with the paper’s readers for many years. Again he was generally assisted by staff writers but there is no doubt but that what was put forward in his name did accurately reflect his thoughts.

There was also an autobiography, Cricket Crossfire, published later in 1956 and, of course, serialised in the Daily Express, a book which sold well. Cricket Crossfire was again not Miller’s own work. As the tour progressed he met Reg Hayter, who had recently established an eponymous sports reporting agency, on numerous occasions in order to give Hayter the material for the book. Hayter in turn passed his notes of those meetings on to the actual ghost, Basil Easterbrook. The book is not an entirely satisfying read. Miller was happy to share his cricketing story and his thoughts on the game, but reluctant to say very much about his wartime activities or, as was of great interest to many at the time, anything of his friendship with the Royal Family and, more particularly, Princess Margaret.

The success of Cricket Crossfire encouraged Miller’s new publisher, Oldbourne, to reprise the old Miller/Whitington formula with a new book from Miller reflecting on the 1958/59 Ashes series. The first part of the book dwelt on retirement and Miller’s views on that issue and there was also a prescient opinion piece on one day cricket. The account of England’s 4-0 defeat was, inevitably, based on the reports that had appeared under Miller’s name in the Express and, given that the exercise was not repeated, sales were presumably at a level that convinced Oldbourne that that style of book had had its day.

Although as far as I am aware there is no causal link the end of the partnership between Whittington and Miller coincided with Whitington relocating to South Africa in 1958. To supplement his earnings from the Sunday Times and Rand Daily Mail in 1961 Whitington assisted South African skipper John Waite with his autobiography (Perchance to Bowl) and followed that with John Reid’s Kiwis, an account of the visit to the Cape of the 1961/62 New Zealanders which provided the game with an unexpectedly exciting series of Test matches.

A couple of years later South Africa visited Australia and Whitington went with them. Bradman, Benaud and Goddard’s Cinderellas was another return to the sort of book Whitington had written before. It was primarily an account of the Test series, but there was also a lengthy essay on Bradman and another on Benaud, who retired from the game at the end of that summer.

In 1966/67 Australia visited South Africa, and were soundly beaten. Again there was a book from Whitington, Simpson’s Safari. A gushing foreword to the book (although he admitted to not having read it) came from Miller and his acknowledged assistance with the chapter on the fifth Test demonstrated that whatever may have gone wrong in 1955 the friendship between the two men had either never actually been completely lost or, if it had, there had been a rapprochement.

By now Whitington was back in Australia where, in 1967, he helped former Australian skipper Vic Richardson get his story into print before, for one last time, working with Miller on a book. Fours Galore was Whitington’s book but the jacket announced it as being with Test descriptions by Keith Miller. The first part of the book, in the manner of the 1950s collaborations between the pair, consisted of a series of essays by Whitington on the game in Australia and West Indies, including a long overdue look at that 1954/55 clash. Political correctness is not to the fore, and some of the words used (no doubt in all innocence) do jar. The second part of the book is an account of the West Indians 1968/69 trip to Australia.

I have not, so far, quoted from any reviews of the books I have mentioned. In this context I always like to refer to the views of Rowland Bowen, so at this stage I will begin by referring to an extract from my post on Bowen’s The Cricket Quarterly. Bowen had, in his first issue, provided a positive review of John Reid’s Kiwis, but after that it was downhill almost all the way as I went on to explain:-

“By the time Whitington’s account of the 1963/64 visit of the South Africans to Australia, Bradman, Benaud and Goddard’s Cinderellas appeared Bowen had decided the author manifestly cannot write English and may not even, on the evidence of this book know what good English is. He didn’t forget that one though as, a few years later Whitington’s book on the 1968/69 West Indies tour of Australia was described as probably the worst book that Whitington has been concerned with and a year later, in the context of a biography of Tiger O’Reilly, he commented that the author continues to exhibit his ignorance of how to write a book, as distinct from a gossip column.” 

The Miller/Whitington collaborations appeared a decade or more before The Cricket Quarterly arrived, but in 1968 Bowen did, in an article examining post war tour books generally, mention Catch!. He wrote; Mentioned here only because the first part of it is some attempt at an account of the Australian tour to South Africa in 1949/50. There are no full scores apart from the Tests; it is interesting to see what a racialist has to say about the South African scene, even if he does also condemn the South African attitude to women. The rest of the book is about the MCC tour to Australia in 1950/51 and it is not recommended on that account at all.

In addition to the books already mentioned in a particularly prolific period up to 1974 Whitington also wrote a biography of Lindsay Hassett, the only account (with the usual digressions) of the 1970/71 Ashes series as well as producing An Illustrated History of Australian Cricket and ghosting the autobiography of ‘Bodyline’ umpire George Hele. With books on lawn tennis, a general sporting book and a biography of Frank Packer (father of Kerry) as well Whitington was working hard. In fairness to him, and indeed to Bowen, I will also quote from Bowen’s review of the Hassett biography, The Quiet Australian, which began with; this is a thoroughly interesting book and altogether to be recommended. What a strange character the author must be to be capable of producing such bad books, and yet such a good one as this.

Miller continued his journalistic activities until 1975 at which point, presumably tiring of ‘commuting’ between England and Australia, he sought and was offered a position with Vernons Pools in Australia. He did not go into print again. As for Whitington his last book of substance was published in 1981 and was, appropriately enough, a biography of Miller. The Golden Nugget was published by Rigby in Australia and seems not to have had a UK release. Certainly the only review I have read of it were a few kind words from John Arlott in Wisden. Perhaps one day I will get around to actually reading the book, rather than just using it for research, even if attempts to do so always leave me cursing its lack of an index.

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An Indian Cricket Quarterly

Ever since I first saw a copy of Rowland Bowen’s The Cricket Quarterly I have been an admirer of his work. The title Bowen chose was not the most imaginative, but that matters not. With cricket magazines it was and is what is between the covers that is important.

I cannot now recall when I first learned that there was a very similarly named magazine from India, lacking only the definite article. It was not something I had ever seen until, a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to buy a complete run of the magazine. Sentiment then took over and I decided the purchase must be worth a gamble. Unlike Bowen’s magazine this one did not have a prohibitive price tag and, that run consisting of a modest fifteen* copies, it was not going to take up too much of my precious shelf space.

Was there a single guiding hand for India’s CQ? I don’t think so, at least not in the manner of the autocratic Bowen. The editor throughout the five year run was Anandji Dossa, renowned primarily as a statistician and a man who was destined to live to the ripe old age of 98. Dossa was joined on an editorial board by Anant Setalvad and Virenchee Sagar. For the last two issues only that trio were joined by a rather more famous name, Sunil Gavaskar.

The first man to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket needs no introduction from me and, strangely, there was no fanfare when he joined the board, his name suddenly appearing on the list. His byline appeared on none of the articles in either of the issues for which he was on the board so the nature of his role is, at first glance, difficult to discern. The three occasions on which he did write for the magazine were in issues two and three of volume four.

Sagar was a businessman, managing director of a successful synthetic textile company, Nirlons. Not a significant cricketer himself Sagar was however a great enthusiast and his ambition was, under the umbrella of his Mumbai based company, to build a top class cricket team. His most spectacular signing, in 1978, was Gavaskar, so the decision to add the great batsman’s name to another of Sagar’s favourite projects is in fact easily explained.

Of the three long term members of the editorial board only Dossa was a good cricketer, but even he never appeared in a First Class match, although he got as close to doing so as it is possible to do without succeeding. He was selected as twelfth man for the Hindus in the Pentangular Tournament and also for Bombay in the Ranji Trophy in the early 1940s. Outside the game he was a successful businessman whose family were involved in the cotton industry.

His business interests enabled Dossa to indulge his great passion for cricket, its literature and statistics. He built up an impressive library and in the late 1950s became a fixture as the All India Radio commentary team’s statistician. It was a position he retained until 1973. Setalvad was a colleague of Dossa’s and a commentator with All India Radio from the 1960s through to the 1980s, and over that time was one of the most popular ‘voices of cricket’ in India.

So what did the magazine contain? The first edition, naturally, contained a mission statement from Setalvad; A word about this new quarterly on cricket. It is being brought out by cricket enthusiast whose main motivation is to transmit their fondness for this magnificent sport to the readers, and to sustain their interest in the game with a mixed bag of articles, stories and statistics of topical, historic and technical value.

Much of the content, as would be expected, came from Indian writers on Indian subjects; Polly Umrigar on the Wankhede Stadium, Vijay Merchant on his most memorable performance and KN Prabhu looking at the home series just gone against West Indies. It wasn’t all India however. Setalvad interviewed Len Hutton, Tony Cozier profiled Andy Roberts and Mike Brearley, who was to be a regular contributor, provided a piece on captaining a county side. Disappointments were the absence of any book reviews (soon remedied) and that Dossa’s statistical review amounted to nothing more than the scorecards of the West Indies Tests.

The fact that the second issue was twenty pages longer than the first suggests that Cricket Quarterly got off to a good start. It begins with an interesting editorial from Setalvad on the question of whether bumpers should be banned before another fine selection of articles. This time it is Mushtaq Ali who writes of his most memorable performance, and the now centenarian Vasant Raiji makes, on the subject of Neville Cardus, his first contribution. There are profiles of Brijesh Patel and Anshuman Gaekwad and, importantly and perhaps unexpectedly, the manager of the Australian team, Betty Butcher, contributed an article to mark the first ever women’s international between India and Australia, that had just taken place. There were also a couple of book reviews. Not quite Rowland Bowen, but Raju Bharatan pulled no punches.

It was all change for issue three, new printer, logo and even size, albeit the ‘shrinkage’ was slight. There more pages too, 72 in all, although there was more advertising, so no real increase in content. Sadly there was no ‘memorable performance’ feature but there was more material from writers based outside India. Brearley and Cozier both appear again, as do two of the biggest contemporary names in cricket writing, Australia’s Ray Robinson and the archetypal Englishman EW ‘Jim’ Swanton. Others were the Australian writer Phil Wilkins and the ‘Sage of Longparish’, John Woodcock.

Volume one finished at this point, and indeed all five volumes only contained three issues, so presumably there was no winter issue. That said I am advised by a renowned Indian collector that the magazine’s appearances were never entirely predictable although I suspect that may not have the case with the first two volumes, in each of which the individual issues referenced a specific three month window, July to September missing out each time.

The second volume continued in much the same vein as the first. There was a good editorial from Setalvad in the first, on the question of burn out, with particular reference to India’s renowned spin bowling quartet. The second volume reported on the infamous 1975/76 tour to West Indies when, on their own wickets, the fearsome West Indies pace pack inflicted some serious injuries on a brave Indian side after the visitors had won a famous victory at Port of Spain by comfortably chasing a fourth innings target of 404. Perhaps surprisingly the subsequent battle of Sabina Park where injuries meant India were all out in their second innings at the fall of their fifth wicket was not the subject of a Setalvad editorial, although in the third issue he did look at the, at the time, paucity of fast bowling stocks in India.

Generally the writers were the same as those seen before, but the trip to West Indies was reported in a couple of essays from the local man Brunell Jones, and a visit to India from New Zealand brought contributions from Kiwi writers Terry Power and Don Cameron. Under slightly different titles there was also a welcome return in issues two and three for pieces by great Indian players about their finest hours, the men involved being Rusi Modi and Vijay Hazare.

Volume three began with an issue dominated by a twelve page feature from Raiji celebrating a hundred years of Test cricket, and another only a couple of pages shorter comprising a rare piece from board member Sagar who interviewed Woodcock and Henry Blofeld on the subject of an Indian cricket. The highlights of issue two were Setalvad on World Series Cricket and Merchant’s essay on the fast bowlers his time – its title was Only Nissar Worried Me. Issue three saw the editorial duties handed over to Sagar, whilst Setalvad wrote a report of the first Test in Australia between Bishan Bedi’s side and Bobby Simpson’s Australian second string. World Series Cricket (WSC) was very  much the issue of the day, and Sagar did an interview on that subject with Modi. There is also an interesting article from Merchant, contrasting his own batting with that of Gavaskar.

As 1978 unfolded World Series Cricket remained the major talking point in the world game and there was plenty of coverage of that subject in issue one of volume four. There was a piece on the WSC Australians’ visit to West Indies from ‘Our Correspondent’ and contributions from Ray Robinson, Kishore Bhimani, John Woodcock and Frank Tyson were all concerned with aspects of WSC, as indeed was Setalvad’s editorial.

Issue two of volume four included on its front cover a selection of press cuttings reporting a number of recent poor performances from India, and inside there are no less than ten essays, all by Indian writers, under the general heading Symposium – Whither Indian Cricket? Interestingly one of the writers was Gavaskar, the country’s leading batsman and soon to be captain. Unsurprisingly his words were carefully chosen. His name appeared again later in the magazine, responding to Merchant’s article in issue three of volume three. Two more fine historical articles were Polly Umrigar’s look at his own best innings, and Raiji’s selection of the best innings he had seen, a Vijay Hazare triple century in the 1943 Pentangular Tournament.

As usual volume four concluded with its third issue, notable for Gavaskar’s only other contribution to the magazine, an article on the ‘pleasures’ of facing fast bowling. There was also an interesting section, comprising articles from Modi, Raiji and ‘Cricketer’** under the title Has The Game Changed? – Some Views.

The fifth and final volume began in 1979 and at first blush looks the same as its predecessors although issue one does not, oddly, contain any reference to an editorial board. Perhaps that was just a change of printer as issues two and three had this reinstated, as noted with the addition of Gavaskar. There is a sign however that the magazine may have been struggling a little financially as forty years on the pages of those final three issues have yellowed a great deal, a sure sign of an attempt to cut cost by allowing the new printer to use inferior quality paper.

The editorials in volume five are interesting. In issue one Setalvad commented on Gavaskar being relieved of the Indian captaincy and, for his second and final tilt at that job in issue two Sagar looked at the lessons to be learned from India’s series defeat at the hands of England in the northern hemisphere summer just gone. Setalvad returned to his usual berth for issue three and the short editorial there seems somewhat cryptic and there must be a suspicion that as he wrote it Setalvad knew that it was unlikely to be a task he would be undertaking again.

As far as the essays in volume five are concerned they are the usual mix of the contemporary reportage and historical review together with a few more eclectic subjects, with the giant shadow cast over the game by the WSC controversy cropping up on several occasions. A personal favourite is one from the occasional The Best Innings I Have Seen series of articles on this occasion from Arvind Lavakare. I have not previously heard of Lavakare, but assuming that google has drawn me to the right man he seems primarily to be a writer on the subject of Indian politics. He can certainly turn his hand to cricket though, and he made an interesting choice, an innings of Clive Lloyd’s in Bangalore in 1974.

Turning to issue two the standard of writing is as high as ever, and also consistent, so I will single out only one item for special mention. I was particularly taken by an article by Raiji on the tour of India that took place in 1930/31 by a side raised by the Maharajah of Vizianagram that included Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe and which, a few years after Raiji’s article, gave rise to a controversy that rumbles on amongst the game’s statisticians to this day. The issue which divides opinion is whether the two centuries made by each of those great England batsmen should or should not (they now are) be recognised as First Class.

Turning finally to the fifteenth and final issue I have already made comment on Setalvad’s editorial. There are also six features that together make up a section of the magazine entitled Symposium: The Money Game. Even with the benefit of more than forty years hindsight they remain a thought provoking selection, and a fitting note on which to bow out for what is certainly one of the better cricketing periodicals.

Of those who founded Cricket Quarterly Dossa died in New York in 2014, as noted at the ripe old age of 98. Setalvad passed away only last year, August 2019, at the age of 84. I have not been able to find a date of death for Sagar, but he was described as ‘late’ back in 1997, so clearly did not enjoy the longevity of his friends. For all three however, like Rowland Bowen, a cricketing magazine that lasted just a few years survives as a tribute to their vision and hard work. The only pity is that, unlike Bowen’s quarterly, this one seems not to be so highly sought after. A full run is certainly rare, the set I have being the only one I have ever seen on the market, but it was not expensive, my certain recollection being that the shipping cost from Australia was greater than that of the magazines themselves.

*Padwick is not clear on the subject of how many issues there were, but Gulu Ezekiel has the same fifteen I have so we are confident, albeit not 100% certain, that volume five issue three, date marked 1979, was the fifteenth and last. That said Gulu and I would be delighted to hear from anyone who is aware of any later issues, particularly if they are willing to sell! On that point it is perhaps worth mentioning that one possible cause for confusion might be that in early 1974 the established Indian periodical Sportsweek introduced its own Sportsweek Cricket Quarterly before, following the launch of their magazine by Dossa, Setalvad and Sagar, changing its name to Sportsweek’s World of Cricket.

**Who was Cricketer and why did he use a pseudonym? The reason is almost certainly that the writer concerned was under contract to someone else but the man involved? The use of Neville Cardus’ old byline suggests the individual concerned was an admirer of the great man which, I understand, makes NS Ramaswami the favourite.

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