Spring's Hardy Annual (Wisden) Makes Welcome Return (04 Apr 1996)

Spring`s hardy annual makes welcome return

Christopher Martin-Jenkins on the extensive records and cheering effect of 133rd edition of Wisden

FRACTIONALLY plumper with every spring, Wisden appears this morning for the 133rd time, as ever a reassuring sign that whatever the disappointments of the departing winter, cricket, like life itself, has wonderful powers of renewal.

Somehow the almanack has always invited comparison with The Bible: it is at once "the same yesterday, today and forever", yet also full of surprises.

If nothing quite compares with Matthew Engel`s inspired idea in 1995 to have five `alternative` cricketers of the year, his eye for the original is reflected in an article about cricket and pubs, based on the photograph collection of 250 cricketing pub signs owned by a man called, oddly enough, Tim Bible.

Cricket attracts serious devotees like that and Wisden is, of course, a book for the serious follower. Like me, they will be fascinated to find that in the 50 post-war seasons the West Indies are the most successful Test team, just ahead of Australia with 40 per cent of their matches won.

Middlesex are the most successful county, fractionally ahead of Surrey and Yorkshire, with Essex at four, far higher than they can have dreamt of being in 1945, and Warwickshire coming up on the rails.

Sri Lankans were underestimated because they were relatively unknown: not any more.

If anyone doubts the competitiveness of current county cricket - and it is fashionable to do so, indeed almost compulsory - let him read the views of John Emburey or Norman Gifford in Pat Murphy`s well-chosen survey of views on whether the game has got worse, although the strictures of that crusading correspondent, Robin Marlar, sadly retiring, restore the balance.

The balance of the world game is less Wisden`s province than domestic issues, by tradition, but in his notes the editor describes a World Championship in Test cricket (not a special tournament, but a structured programme of Tests) as an idea whose time will come, and I hope it does. Matthew Engel would not be human if he did not watch Aravinda de Silva`s wonderful innings in the World Cup final with a mixture of pride and relief that he had chosen him as one of the five cricketers.

The remarkable thing is that it took so long before a county - Kent - finally offered de Silva a contract. Since bowling against him years ago, this correspondent has been advising anyone who wanted to listen that he would be a bargain but, of course, Sri Lankans were underestimated because they were relatively unknown: not any more.

If there is a surprise in the five cricketers it is the choice of Angus Fraser, only because one assumed he had already been selected. May he further justify it this season because Fraser is a modern gem, dealing, as Mike Selvey writes, "in parsimony and red-faced effort".

Dominic Cork, Dermot Reeve and Anil Kumble are the other new members of the most exclusive cricket club of all and, since our national morale needs a boost, let us take pride that three are English: two extroverts and an introvert, each of them a cricketer of rare character.

* Wisden Cricketers` Almanack 1996 (John Wisden, #24.50).

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http.//www.telegraph.co.uk)