‘Evoe’, ‘Can Nothing Be Done?’ first published in Punch, 29 July 1925, here reprinted from David Rayvern Allen, editor, The Punch Book of Cricket (Granada, 1985).
Ray Robinson, ‘Touch of a Hero’, and Ray Robinson, ‘Much in a Name’, both from Robinson, From the Boundary (Collins, 1950).
Ray Robinson, ‘The Original Little Master’, from Robinson, The Glad Season (Sportsmans Book Club, 1956).
C. L. R. James, ‘A Representative Man’, from James, Cricket, edited by Anna Grimshaw (Allison & Busby, 1986). Reprinted by kind permission of Allison & Busby, London.
John Arlott, ‘In His Pomp’, from Arlott, Fred (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1971).
Ray Robinson, ‘Southern Southpaws’, from Robinson, The Glad Season (Sportsmans Book Club, 1956).
Frank Keating, ‘Down Under and Out’, originally published in Punch, reprinted in Keating, Long Days, Late Nights (Unwin, 1984). Copyright © Guardian and Frank Keating 1984.
Scyld Berry, ‘Gavaskar Equals Bradman’, originally published in the Observer, here reprinted from Scyld Berry, editor, The Observer on Cricket (Unwin, 1988).
John Woodcock, ‘Kapil’s Devil’, originally published in The Times.
Donald Woods, ‘Twist Again’, originally published in The Times, here reprinted from Marcus Williams, editor, Double Century: Cricket in The Times (Collins, 1985).
Martin Johnson, ‘A Man with a Secret’, originally published in the Independent, here reprinted from Andrew Green, editor, Can’t Bat, Can’t Bowl, Can’t Field: The Best Cricket Writings of Martin Johnson (Collins Willow, 1997).
Scyld Berry, ‘Botham’s Fastest Hundred’, from Scyld Berry, Cricket Wallah (Hodder & Stoughton, 1982).
Hugh Mcilvaney, ‘Black Is Bountiful’, originally published in the Observer, here reprinted from Scyld Berry, editor, The Observer on Cricket (Unwin, 1988).
Frank Keating, ‘Marshall Arts’, from Keating, Sportswriter’s Eye (Queen Anne Press, 1990).
Martin Johnson, ‘King of the Willow’, originally published in the Independent, here reprinted from Andrew Green, editor, Can’t Bat, Can’t Bowl, Can’t Field: The Best Cricket Writings of Martin Johnson (Collins Willow, 1997).
B. C. Pires, ‘Emperor of Trinidad’, from the Guardian. Copyright © The Guardian and B. C. Pires 1998.
Frank Keating, ‘Final Fling for the Fizzer’, from the Guardian 1999. Copyright © Guardian.
Mike Selvey, ‘Sachin of Mumbai’, from Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack 1997. Copyright © John Wisden & Co. Ltd and Mike Selvey.
Suresh Menon, ‘Tendulkar of the World’, from Outlook magazine, New Delhi.
Alan Ross, ‘Watching Benaud Bowl’, reprinted from Ross, Green Fading into Blue (André Deutsch, 1999).
A. A. Thomson, ‘Bat, Ball and Boomerang’, from Thomson, Odd Men In (1958: reprint, Michael Joseph, 1985).
John Arlott, ‘Rough Diamond’, originally published in The Spectator, reprinted in Arlott on Cricket, edited by David Rayvern Allen (Collins, 1984).
Neville Cardus, ‘Robinson of Yorkshire’, from Cardus, Good Days (Jonathan Cape, 1934).
David Foot, ‘Character in the Counties’, originally published in Cricket Lore magazine. Copyright © the Guardian and David Foot 1998.
Rowland Ryder, ‘The Unplayable Jeeves’, from Ryder, Cricket Calling (Faber and Faber, 1995).
C. L. R. James, ‘The Most Unkindest Cut’, from James, Beyond a Boundary (Hutchinson, 1963).
Matthew Engel, ‘A Great Fat Man’, from Cricket Heroes (Queen Anne Press, 1983) copyright © Matthew Engel 1983.
Dale Slater, ‘Abed and Apartheid’, published in Cricket Lore magazine. Copyright © Dale Slater, 1993.
Philip Snow, ‘The Fijian Botham’, from Cricket Heroes (Phoenix Sports Books, 1959).
Sujit Mukherjee, ‘A Jesuit in Patna’, from Mukherjee, Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer (Ravi Dayal Publishers, New Delhi, 1996). Copyright © Sujit Mukherjee 1996.
Neville Cardus, ‘A Shastbury Character’, from Cardus, Close of Play (Collins, 1956).
Alan Gibson, ‘The Unmasking of a Dashing Oriental Star’, originally published in The Times, here reprinted from Marcus Williams, editor, Double Century: Cricket in The Times (Collins, 1985).
N. S. Ramaswami, ‘Iverson and the Lesser Arts’, from Ramaswami, Winter of Content (Swadeshimitran Press, Madras, 1967).
Richard Cashman, ‘The Celebrated Yabba’, from Cashman, ‘Ave a Go, Yer Mug! (Collins, Sydney, 1984).
Hubert Phillips, ‘An Englishman’s Crease’, reprinted from Alan Ross, A Cricketer’s Companion (second edition: Eyre Methuen, 1979).
Ralph Barker, ‘The Demon against England’, from Barker, Ten Great Bowlers (Chatto & Windus, 1967).
Neville Cardus, ‘The Ideal Cricket Match’, from Cardus, Close of Play (Collins, 1956).
C. L. R. James, ‘Barnes v. Constantine’, from James, Cricket, edited by Anna Grimshaw (Allison & Busby, 1986). Reprinted by kind permission of Allison & Busby, London.
J. H. Fingleton, ‘The Best Test I Have Known’, from Fingleton, Masters of Cricket (1958: reprint Michael Joseph, 1986). Attempts at tracing the copyright holder were unsuccessful.
Richie Benaud, ‘The Last Day at Brisbane’, from Benaud, A Tale of Two Tests (Hodder and Stoughton, 1962).
Mike Marqusee, ‘David Slays Goliath’, from Marqusee, War Minus the Shooting (Mandarin, 1996).
R. C. Robertson-Glasgow, ‘The One-Way Critic’, from Robertson-Glasgow, The Brighter Side of Cricket (Arthur Baker, 1933).
J. H. Fingleton, ‘The Brilliance of Left-Handers’, from Fingleton on Cricket (Collins, 1972). Attempts at tracing the copyright holder were unsuccessful.
John Arlott, ‘Fast and Furious’, from Arlott, Concerning Cricket (Longman, Green and Co., 1949).
Ian Peebles, ‘Opening Batsmen’, from Peebles, Talking of Cricket (Sportsmans Book Club, 1955).
John Arlott, ‘Not One to Cover’, reprinted in Arlott on Cricket, edited by David Rayvern Allen (Collins, 1984).
Gerald Brodribb, ‘The Big Hit’, from Brodribb, Hit for Six (Sportsmans Book Club, 1951).
Ian Peebles, ‘Ballooners’, from Peebles, Talking of Cricket (Sportsmans Book Club, 1955).
Neville Cardus, ‘The Umpire’, from Cardus, Good Days (Jonathan Cape, 1934).
J. H. Fingleton, ‘Cricket Farewells’, from Fingleton on Cricket (Collins, 1972). Attempts at tracing the copyright holder were unsuccessful.
Tunku Varadarajan, ‘To Lords with Love – and a Hamper’, from The Times, 1994. Copyright © The Times.
Alan Ross, ‘The Presence of Ranji’, from Ross, Green Fading into Blue (André Deutsch, 1999).
Gideon Haigh, ‘Sir Donald Brandname’, first published in Wisden Cricket Monthly, September 1998.
B. C. Pires, ‘Coping with Defeat’ (in two parts), originally published in The Trinidad Guardian.
Ian Wooldridge, ‘Ashes Dream Teams’, Daily Mail, 1977, here reprinted from Roy Peskett, editor, The Best of Cricket (Hamlyn, 1982). Copyright © Daily Mail 1977 and reprinted with kind permission of the author.
John Arlott, ‘Australianism’, from Arlott, Concerning Cricket (Longman, Green & Co., 1949).
V. S. Naipaul, ‘The Caribbean Flavour’, from Encounter, September 1963.
J. B. Priestley, ‘The Lesson of Garfield Sobers’, from The New Statesman, 9 September 1966. Copyright © New Statesman 1999.
Neville Cardus, ‘The Spirit of Summer’, from Cardus, An Autobiography (Collins, 1949).
A. A. Thomson, ‘Winter Made Glorious’, from Thomson, Cricket My Happiness (Museum Press, 1954). Attempts at tracing the copyright holder were unsuccessful.
Neville Cardus, ‘What’s in a Name?’, from Cardus, The Summer Game (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1948).
Rowland Ryder, ‘The Pleasures of Reading Wisden’, from Ryder, Cricket Calling (Faber and Faber, 1995).
R. C. Robertson-Glasgow, ‘The Bowler’s Epitaph’, from Robertson-Glasgow, The Brighter Side of Cricket (Arthur Baker, 1933).<
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Endnotes
1 George Pinder (Yorkshire) was credited with having been the first in England to do without a longstop to fast bowling.
2 A spiralling cyclonic wind, so named by West Australian Aborigines.
3 Except at Cardiff Arms Park, where the mud renders this impossible.
4 Thoms afterwards denied saying this and stated that his reply had been monosyllabic – ‘Out’.
5 After this book went to press I did pick up a copy from a pavement stall in the Madras locality of Luz.
THE PICADOR BOOK OF
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Ramachandra Guha is one of India’s leading historians and a well known writer on cricket. He currently writes a column on the game for the Hindu, and is the author of A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport. He lives in Bangalore.
First published 2001 by Picador
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ISBN 978-1-5098-4140-0
Copyright © Ramachandra Guha 2001
Front cover photograph: W. G. Grace and W. L. Murdoch at Crystal Palace c.1900 © The Hulton Getty Collection
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