The Shorter Wisden 2013 Read Online Free PDF

later became a tea merchant, Spofforth was essentially a medium-pacer from 1878, but he was a lean 6ft 3in and bowled with such skilful intensity that he struck dread into many
batsmen. About two-thirds of his 853 first-class wickets were taken on five tours of England. He dismissed Grace 20 times, took the first Test hat-trick and, at the end of his last Test in January
1887, had picked up more wickets (94 at 18 each) than anyone.
    Spofforth and Murdoch both eventually settled in England and, like the three Englishmen, played beyond the advent of the Cricketers of the Year. Ulyett and Steel appeared in their final county
games in 1893. Spofforth, who turned out occasionally for Derbyshire and in festival matches, played his last first-class match in 1897, as did Shaw. Murdoch, who qualified for and captained
Sussex, enjoyed a fine season in that year, when he scored 1,283 runs and led the county to sixth in what was now a properly constituted Championship of 14 teams. He might have been an imaginative
inclusion among a Five, but
Wisden
– which had yet to pick an overseas county player – ignored his claims. No longer.
    Simon Wilde is cricket correspondent of
The Sunday Times
and editor of
Wisden Cricketers of the Year 1889–2013,
to be published in October
2013.
     

WHAT EDITING WISDEN MEANT TO ME
A cottage industry
    John Woodcock (1981–86)
    Almost from the first moment I could read, I seem to have had a copy of
Wisden
at my bedside, and could never be separated from it as a cricket writer. But the thought
of editing it had never occurred to me – until the seed was planted in the Long Room at Lord’s at the wedding reception of Brian Johnston’s daughter, nine days after Norman
Preston, the Almanack’s tenth editor, had died. Also at the reception was the managing editor of the then publishers, Queen Anne Press; the idea was floated, and things moved on from
there.
    That I managed to do the job at the same time as being the cricket correspondent of
The Times
was due to two people – Graeme Wright, who was to become my successor, and Christine
Forrest, a neighbour of his and as dependable as she was receptive. Technically and administratively they were indispensable. For the first time in its history,
Wisden
was a cottage
industry, operating from under my thatched roof in the Hampshire village of Longparish.
    As the voice of cricket, it imposes on the editor a singular responsibility. If that sounds self-important, nothing that Sir Donald Bradman said in his letter to me on my appointment made me
think otherwise: there was no doubting his affection and respect for the great work, nor the delight he took from his own collection.
    It must still be fun choosing the Five Cricketers of the Year and keeping the cognoscenti guessing while about it, and the annual encyclical (dubbed Notes by the Editor) remains the one
universally quoted cricket article of the year. But if offered the job again today, I’d know I would not be up to it. For one thing, like old John Wisden, I don’t have an email; for
another, I might submit to the need to put Twenty20 cricket in its place, and that would never do.
    Graeme Wright (1987–92, 2001–02)
    Being editor of
Wisden
was never my ambition, however much I was enjoying my involvement in the Almanack as assistant editor, first to Norman Preston, then to John
Woodcock, and as the director of John Wisden & Co responsible for publishing it. However, the editorship, coming on John Woodcock’s recommendation in 1986, was an honour not easily
declined.
    From a practical viewpoint, it enabled me to continue streamlining the day-to-day systems of the Almanack and, while meeting demands to build the value of the business, maintain a sensible cover
price. What I might have wanted to do personally was very much secondary to what was best for the book. It was not what being editor meant to
me
, therefore, but what
Wisden
meant
to others – not only current readers but