Booth named editor of Wisden Almanack

Lawrence Booth has been appointed as editor of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, traditionally one of the most prestigious jobs in cricket journalism. Booth, 35, will become the youngest Wisden editor in 72 years. Scyld Berry, editor since 2008, is set to declare after his fourth almanack - the 148th edition - is published in April.

Booth, currently cricket writer for the Daily Mail, first joined Wisden to gain work experience in 1998, working for the almanack, Wisden Cricket Monthly (now The Wisden Cricketer) and wisden.com before leaving to go freelance in 2002.

He initially worked for the Daily Telegraph and The Guardian, where he pioneered Over-By-Over web coverage and the online column The Spin. This mutated into Top Spin when Booth joined the Mail in 2009. It was voted Best Online Column in the 2010 Sports Journalists' Awards.

Booth will work alongside Hugh Chevallier, who has been promoted from deputy editor to co-editor. Chevallier will have prime responsibility for production and publication and also for the almanack's core content of match reporting and statistics. Berry, a long-serving and respected member of the cricket press corps, will concentrate on his role as cricket correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph.

"Scyld has been a terrific editor," said Matthew Engel, Berry's predecessor as editor of the almanack. "He brought to the book an authority and knowledge of the game that perhaps only John Woodcock has ever matched. Lawrence has big shoes to fill but he is a great talent. We hope the Lawrence-Hugh combination will take the book into a new era.

"Cricket is changing very fast, too fast for some of us. Wisden's job is to reflect those changes without ever losing sight of its own values, and those that should be at the heart of cricket. I have great faith that the new team will continue to do that."