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A Wisden Collection: v. 2
For 141 years Wisden Cricketers' Almanack has collected and collated what happens in top-class cricket, making Wisden the most famous name in sports publishing. Its pages record the development of a game and reflect social changes in the world beyond the game's boundaries. This second volume of A Wisden Collection provides a taste of Wisden down the years, picking out the highlights and the heroes who have made cricket headlines. Jonathan Rice in Wisden Cricketer described the first collection as 'an unputdownable treasure-trove of all that's quirky, informative and fascinating about Wisden's view of cricket'. Volume Two will be just as appealing to all cricket fans.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2005
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March 6, 2026
After reading the first volume of 'A Wisden Collection', I decided to read the second volume. The editor here was different, it was Jonathan Rice.
Like the first volume, this second volume is also organized by chapters on different themes. But the themes are different here and so they complement the first volume very well. Here, there are chapters on the first ever test victories of different test cricket playing nations and the bowlers who have taken 2000+ first class wickets. (As Jonathan Rice points out in his introduction to this chapter, there are only two players who feature in both the lists of players who've made a hundred centuries and players who've taken 2000+ first class wickets. One is the legendary W.G.Grace. And the second is Kent's peerless allrounder Frank Woolley! Yay! Woolley, the legend 🔥🔥🔥). There is also a chapter on players who played just one match and did well but were never selected again in the team. It features Andy Ganteaume, who is a legend in cricket circles because he is the only guy with a test batting average better than Don Bradman's. He played just one test match. This chapter also features one of my favourites, 'Father' Marriott, who played one test match for England and took 11 wickets in that match. He was never picked for England again. I first read about him in a biography of Trevor Bailey. I was amazed when I read this about him, because he was a legspinner and legspinners were rare in England and he seems to have been one of the best. So it was very suprising to know that inspite of a brilliant start to his international career, he was never picked for the England team again. There are also chapters on players who were rated highly when they came in but who didn't have long careers and another on players who signed off with a bang in their last match. Another interesting chapter was about cricketers who had a surname of Johnson or Taylor. It featured some of the legends of the game like Mark Taylor and it has featured lesser known players. There is also a whole chapter dedicated to W.G.Grace, and another whole chapter dedicated to Yorkshire cricket.
There is also one chapter on umpires in which my favourite Dickie Bird is featured. In Tony Lewis' appreciation of Dickie Bird, there is this beautiful passage.
"His final exit at Lord's, 1996, was incredible. He was given a Hollywood-style reception which has never been afforded to any player, let alone an umpire. Don Bradman and Viv Richards were applauded to the crease when they played their last innings in England, and the Don was given three cheers. Umpire Bird walked out of the Long Room and the whole of Lord's stood and applauded. Even more, the players of England and India sides were out on the grass to form a corridor of appreciation. Frank Chester would not have recognised the scene, nor, I guess, would he and his contemporaries have approved the elevation of an umpire so far above the real craftsmen who bat, bowl and field.
But if you wanted the essence of Dickie Bird encapsulated in a few minutes, you could have seen it that day. One moment he was dabbing at his tears with a handkerchief; then at the fifth ball of the match he gave a rock-solid decision for lbw against Mike Atherton, the England captain. It is probably true that Dickie was a natural character who became a conscious character. But he never allowed anything to stand in the way of the fair conduct of the game. That is why he retained the trust of the players and stayed at the top for so long."
Dickie Bird passed away last year at the age of 92. He lived a long beautiful life which was dedicated to the game of cricket. He never married and was single all through his life. It was a sad day when he passed. But I'm glad that our times overlapped and I was able to enjoy his umpiring in cricket matches and smile at his eccentricities.
Another of my favourite chapters was about cricketers on Holy Orders, cricketers who became priests, some of whom continued to play cricket even after that. The famous Reverend David Sheppard is featured here, who was once picked for a test match against Australia though he hadn't played much in two years. He did what fans dream about – he went on to make a hundred. It was in the test match in which Jim Laker took 19 wickets. Seven years later he was picked again in the English test team against New Zealand and he repeated what he did before – he made another hundred 😊 The Reverend Sheppard was something.
One of my favourite chapters was about women in Wisden. In this chapter, there is a whole essay by Netta Rheinberg about cricket legend Enid Bakewell, who played for England. The first paragraph of the essay goes like this.
"Mrs Enid Bakewell (née Turton) cannot remember when she first took up a bat, but the game of cricket attracted her at an early age and in 1950, when she was nine years old, she joined the local boys playing on a small field close to her home as, in her own words, "there were too few girls available". The only child of a non-cricketing family, her parents encouraged her enthusiasm, purchasing and supplying her with all her gear. At her Primary School at Newstead, Enid was soon better at cricket than the boys and when at Brincliffe County Grammar School, Nottingham, the boys used to borrow her gear."
Reading this made me smile and it gave me goosebumps. It made me remember one of my friends. My friend once shared this story with me. She used to play cricket when she was in school. She was brilliant in it, better than the boys. When the school team was selected, she was appointed as the captain, and ten other boys played under her leadership. This created quite a stir during that time and the local newspaper went and interviewed some of her teammates and published an article about it. In the interview, my friend 's teammates said – "We love playing under our Skipper's leadership. She is amazing!" (I can't remember the exact quote, I'm paraphrasing here.) It gave me goosebumps when my friend told me this story and shared this newspaper clipping with me. It still gives me goosebumps.
Another of my favourite parts of the book was a beautiful article by the then Wisden editor John Woodcock in which he discussed on whether it was okay to change cricket statistics many years or decades after match had happened. The first paragraph of the article goes like this.
"There follows an article by Michael Fordham, Wisden's chief statistician since 1979, in which he gives his reasons, and those of the Association of Cricket Statisticians, for wanting to change, quite significantly, the career record of W. G. Grace. While acknowledging the amount of work done by Mr Fordham and his fellow scrutineers, and though grateful for the pleasure they give us, I prefer to leave the great man's figures as they have been for as long as anyone cares to remember."
Woodcock says this later in the article.
"No amount of research could, to my mind, justify changing a record so honoured by time and custom. If wrong decisions are thought to have been made, they should be altered reasonably soon or left to stand. That one-day games played more than a century ago should have been termed first-class need not surprise us: there were no regulations in those days stipulating the minimum time for a first-class match. Then, as now, contemporary opinion was the best criterion."
This is one of the areas which I feel strongly about, and I loved Woodcock's point of view on it. As someone who has loved cricket statistics since I was a kid, I always loved those great records which have achieved legendary status that they'll probably never been bettered. Like Don Bradman's test average of 99.94. One of my favourite legendary records was Jack Hobbs total number of first class centuries. For as long as I can remember, it was 197 centuries. Then in recent years, cricket statisticians poked their finger into it, changed the classification of some of the matches and increased the number of his centuries to 199! I was surprised to discover that one day suddenly Jack Hobbs' centuries had jumped from 197 to 199 nearly 80 years after he had retired! I refuse to accept this! For me, Jack Hobbs' centuries will always be 197! So cricket statisticians, please don't do this! Leave the past alone! If we just keep poking fingers like this, someone will find four runs and add it to Don Bradman's record and make his average 100. We don't want that!
I loved what John Woodcock said about this. My respect for him has gone up after I read this piece by him.
This collection also featured Wisden's dry humour. One of my favourite sentences went like this –
"Wisden, even though founded by a professional cricketer, tended to take the establishment view on everything, and the establishment view was to brush as much as possible under the carpet."
I couldn't stop laughing when I read that 😆
I loved reading this second volume of 'A Wisden Collection'. I think I loved the first volume more, because it was my first Wisden, but this second volume was equally good. I'm glad I got to read them both.
Have you read this or any other collection of Wisden?
On the cover :
Left : The winning English captain of the legendary 2005 Ashes series, Michael Vaughan
Middle : The legendary W.G.Grace
Right : The great English bowler, Derek Underwood
Like the first volume, this second volume is also organized by chapters on different themes. But the themes are different here and so they complement the first volume very well. Here, there are chapters on the first ever test victories of different test cricket playing nations and the bowlers who have taken 2000+ first class wickets. (As Jonathan Rice points out in his introduction to this chapter, there are only two players who feature in both the lists of players who've made a hundred centuries and players who've taken 2000+ first class wickets. One is the legendary W.G.Grace. And the second is Kent's peerless allrounder Frank Woolley! Yay! Woolley, the legend 🔥🔥🔥). There is also a chapter on players who played just one match and did well but were never selected again in the team. It features Andy Ganteaume, who is a legend in cricket circles because he is the only guy with a test batting average better than Don Bradman's. He played just one test match. This chapter also features one of my favourites, 'Father' Marriott, who played one test match for England and took 11 wickets in that match. He was never picked for England again. I first read about him in a biography of Trevor Bailey. I was amazed when I read this about him, because he was a legspinner and legspinners were rare in England and he seems to have been one of the best. So it was very suprising to know that inspite of a brilliant start to his international career, he was never picked for the England team again. There are also chapters on players who were rated highly when they came in but who didn't have long careers and another on players who signed off with a bang in their last match. Another interesting chapter was about cricketers who had a surname of Johnson or Taylor. It featured some of the legends of the game like Mark Taylor and it has featured lesser known players. There is also a whole chapter dedicated to W.G.Grace, and another whole chapter dedicated to Yorkshire cricket.
There is also one chapter on umpires in which my favourite Dickie Bird is featured. In Tony Lewis' appreciation of Dickie Bird, there is this beautiful passage.
"His final exit at Lord's, 1996, was incredible. He was given a Hollywood-style reception which has never been afforded to any player, let alone an umpire. Don Bradman and Viv Richards were applauded to the crease when they played their last innings in England, and the Don was given three cheers. Umpire Bird walked out of the Long Room and the whole of Lord's stood and applauded. Even more, the players of England and India sides were out on the grass to form a corridor of appreciation. Frank Chester would not have recognised the scene, nor, I guess, would he and his contemporaries have approved the elevation of an umpire so far above the real craftsmen who bat, bowl and field.
But if you wanted the essence of Dickie Bird encapsulated in a few minutes, you could have seen it that day. One moment he was dabbing at his tears with a handkerchief; then at the fifth ball of the match he gave a rock-solid decision for lbw against Mike Atherton, the England captain. It is probably true that Dickie was a natural character who became a conscious character. But he never allowed anything to stand in the way of the fair conduct of the game. That is why he retained the trust of the players and stayed at the top for so long."
Dickie Bird passed away last year at the age of 92. He lived a long beautiful life which was dedicated to the game of cricket. He never married and was single all through his life. It was a sad day when he passed. But I'm glad that our times overlapped and I was able to enjoy his umpiring in cricket matches and smile at his eccentricities.
Another of my favourite chapters was about cricketers on Holy Orders, cricketers who became priests, some of whom continued to play cricket even after that. The famous Reverend David Sheppard is featured here, who was once picked for a test match against Australia though he hadn't played much in two years. He did what fans dream about – he went on to make a hundred. It was in the test match in which Jim Laker took 19 wickets. Seven years later he was picked again in the English test team against New Zealand and he repeated what he did before – he made another hundred 😊 The Reverend Sheppard was something.
One of my favourite chapters was about women in Wisden. In this chapter, there is a whole essay by Netta Rheinberg about cricket legend Enid Bakewell, who played for England. The first paragraph of the essay goes like this.
"Mrs Enid Bakewell (née Turton) cannot remember when she first took up a bat, but the game of cricket attracted her at an early age and in 1950, when she was nine years old, she joined the local boys playing on a small field close to her home as, in her own words, "there were too few girls available". The only child of a non-cricketing family, her parents encouraged her enthusiasm, purchasing and supplying her with all her gear. At her Primary School at Newstead, Enid was soon better at cricket than the boys and when at Brincliffe County Grammar School, Nottingham, the boys used to borrow her gear."
Reading this made me smile and it gave me goosebumps. It made me remember one of my friends. My friend once shared this story with me. She used to play cricket when she was in school. She was brilliant in it, better than the boys. When the school team was selected, she was appointed as the captain, and ten other boys played under her leadership. This created quite a stir during that time and the local newspaper went and interviewed some of her teammates and published an article about it. In the interview, my friend 's teammates said – "We love playing under our Skipper's leadership. She is amazing!" (I can't remember the exact quote, I'm paraphrasing here.) It gave me goosebumps when my friend told me this story and shared this newspaper clipping with me. It still gives me goosebumps.
Another of my favourite parts of the book was a beautiful article by the then Wisden editor John Woodcock in which he discussed on whether it was okay to change cricket statistics many years or decades after match had happened. The first paragraph of the article goes like this.
"There follows an article by Michael Fordham, Wisden's chief statistician since 1979, in which he gives his reasons, and those of the Association of Cricket Statisticians, for wanting to change, quite significantly, the career record of W. G. Grace. While acknowledging the amount of work done by Mr Fordham and his fellow scrutineers, and though grateful for the pleasure they give us, I prefer to leave the great man's figures as they have been for as long as anyone cares to remember."
Woodcock says this later in the article.
"No amount of research could, to my mind, justify changing a record so honoured by time and custom. If wrong decisions are thought to have been made, they should be altered reasonably soon or left to stand. That one-day games played more than a century ago should have been termed first-class need not surprise us: there were no regulations in those days stipulating the minimum time for a first-class match. Then, as now, contemporary opinion was the best criterion."
This is one of the areas which I feel strongly about, and I loved Woodcock's point of view on it. As someone who has loved cricket statistics since I was a kid, I always loved those great records which have achieved legendary status that they'll probably never been bettered. Like Don Bradman's test average of 99.94. One of my favourite legendary records was Jack Hobbs total number of first class centuries. For as long as I can remember, it was 197 centuries. Then in recent years, cricket statisticians poked their finger into it, changed the classification of some of the matches and increased the number of his centuries to 199! I was surprised to discover that one day suddenly Jack Hobbs' centuries had jumped from 197 to 199 nearly 80 years after he had retired! I refuse to accept this! For me, Jack Hobbs' centuries will always be 197! So cricket statisticians, please don't do this! Leave the past alone! If we just keep poking fingers like this, someone will find four runs and add it to Don Bradman's record and make his average 100. We don't want that!
I loved what John Woodcock said about this. My respect for him has gone up after I read this piece by him.
This collection also featured Wisden's dry humour. One of my favourite sentences went like this –
"Wisden, even though founded by a professional cricketer, tended to take the establishment view on everything, and the establishment view was to brush as much as possible under the carpet."
I couldn't stop laughing when I read that 😆
I loved reading this second volume of 'A Wisden Collection'. I think I loved the first volume more, because it was my first Wisden, but this second volume was equally good. I'm glad I got to read them both.
Have you read this or any other collection of Wisden?
On the cover :
Left : The winning English captain of the legendary 2005 Ashes series, Michael Vaughan
Middle : The legendary W.G.Grace
Right : The great English bowler, Derek Underwood
Displaying 1 of 1 review