Scyld Berry

Scyld Berry is undoubtedly a terrific writer, I just wish I knew more about County Cricket before I read this book. Although I've played the game for 27 years, I am a stranger to most of the minutia and zeitgeist. I know my mid-week club in Victoria and that's about it.

I loved, loved, loved the chapter on Worcestershire, easily the best in the book. Reading about the cathedral and how the pitch floods, and the adventures of the head groundskeeper was fascinating. And it rings true to what I suspected prior to reading the book; reading stats about how this batsmen got 170 or this bowler got 7 wickets in a match is not exciting. Reading about the personalities and history behind those stats are far more interesting - stories like how hungover a player was, or how owners of clubs would employ their players in the off-season, or how the World Wars impacted the clubs, or the economics behind keeping a ground alive, or how some were arrested on the way to the pitch, etc.

It reminds me of my own match reports I write for my team - https://rossbaycricketclub.wordpress.com/

There are only so many ways to make a cricket game seem exciting, so the sizzle is just as important as the steak. Amusing anecdotes, clashing of personalities, hubris and history make reports come alive. If more chapters were like Worcestershire, this would have been a 4 or a 5, easily. Glad I read this one!… (mehr)

What was cricket like back in the dim past of 2008? There's no better place to find out than the 2009 "Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack".

I always head immediately to the back of the "Wisden" for the "Index of Unusual Occurrences"; here we find that Andrew Symonds scored an eight in a Test match against New Zealand and that a fox stopped play in an English county match. Elsewhere, the Obituaries section recorded, amongst many others, the deaths of Bill Brown, Bob Cunis, Zulfiqur Ahmed and, disconcertingly, Paul Hibbert, who I saw live in a Shield match surely not that long ago.

I could go on, but if you've read this far, you know that "Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack" is always the highlight of the cricket year.… (mehr)

Everyone devours the latest “Wisden” in their own way. Some start from the start, reading the Editor’s notes, then the five cricketers of the year and so forth. Some, with ties to a particular English county or country, will turn to the relevant pages covering their team’s results. I am part of another group; those that immediately flip to the back of the book to read “the index of unusual occurrences”.

2007 was just as strange a year in cricket as ever. In Cuttuck, India, play in the Himachal Pradesh v Orrissa was twice stopped by swarms of bees (sadly, “Wisden” does not note whether that is a record). Meanwhile, play was stopped in a match between Lancashire and Kent when the pavilion was evacuated after a smoke alarm was set off by some burnt gravy. And of course the after effects of an Artic Monkeys concert caused play to be delayed in a Lancashire v Hampshire match.

The “Cricket round the world” is another favourite of mine, with entries from outposts like Guam, the Dominican Republic and Greece.

All in all, “Wisden” is one of my favourite wastes of time.… (mehr)