Wisden 2000 preview

"England hit bottom after a series in which they played the wrong opposition on the wrong grounds under the wrong management who picked the wrong team who performed in the wrong way." Notes by the Editor on England's summer of '99

"It is against the Spirit of the Game to dispute an umpire's decision by word, action or gesture." The new Laws of Cricket

"It made me long for the criminally neglected Dylan Thomas masterpiece `Taking a second-hand Alka-Seltzer with Tony Cordle at Ebbw Vale'." Peter Tinniswood on Cricket Books

"Mark Nicholas was imported from Sky as anchorman and introduced millionsofnewviewers To. His. Unusual. Mode. Of. Delivery." Marcus Berkmann on Channel 4's first season

"WORTHINGTON, PRIMROSE, who died on January 23, 1999, aged 93, was the last surviving grandchild of W. G. Grace. She remembered sitting on his knee and tying ribbons in his beard." Obituary

The Millennium Edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack will be published on Thursday, April 6. Wisden 2000, the 137th edition, will be the largest ever at 1,600 pages. Each volume will be sold with a free 224-page paperback, A Century of Wisden, containing an extract from every edition from 1900 to 1999.

This year's Wisden contains far more pictures and far more editorial than ever before. The main feature of the book is the special section reviewing the 20th century. In his preface, editor Matthew Engel says that the volume is intended as an antidote to the gloom surrounding English cricket. "It seemed right that this Wisden should be, above all, a celebration."

Wisden includes its Five Cricketers of the Century, two alternative selections for Summers of the Century, the ten Images of the Century, A Hundred Matches of the Century and a review of a hundred years of cricket literature. The section also includes an article by Tim Rice marking a hundred years of Notes by the Editor - Wisden's most distinctive annual feature - and a memoir by E. W. Swanton on the Almanack's 20th century editors. He knew them all. It was one of the last pieces he wrote before his death in January, aged 92.

Wisden 2001 will have a new editor. After eight years (a stint surpassed by only two of the century's editors), Matthew Engel has announced that he will step down for this edition. "Everyone needs a break," he writes, "including the readership." He will be replaced by his predecessor, Graeme Wright.

Since 1889, the Cricketers of the Year have been chosen annually by the Editor. The Cricketers of the Century have been chosen by a panel of a hundred experts from all the Test-playing countries.

The electorate contained 53 Test cricketers including such heroes as Sir Alec Bedser, Lord (Colin) Cowdrey, Fred Trueman, Ted Dexter, Richie Benaud, Steve Waugh, Sir Clyde Walcott, Clive Lloyd and Sunil Gavaskar.

Forty-nine different players received votes in the poll (including six members of the voting panel) but five clear-cut winners emerged, reflecting the glory of 20th century cricket. Those polled - 97 men and three women - were asked "to set aside any bias to your own country and your own era, and name the five whose excellence at cricket during the 20th century has made the greatest contribution to the game". No one voted for themselves, but someone voted for his son. All will be revealed in the new Wisden.

The names of the five they have chosen will be announced at 10am on Wednesday 5 April. Details will be found then on Wisden's website (www.wisden.com or www.cricketunlimited.com) and can also be obtained from Beer Davies on the number below. The names of the Five Cricketers of the Year for 2000 will be announced at the same time. The new Wisden announces that Engel and Wright have agreed that selections henceforth will not be confined to the English season, ending 111 years of tradition. This is to "reflect reality" concerning England's place in the game.

Frank Keating lists his top dozen summers of the past 100 years and concludes by naming his Summer of the Century: "Plums cost 3d a pound, and glorious Glorse came second to mighty Middlesex in the Championship. And a bloke called John Arlott was word-painting wondrous stuff on the wireless. In 1947. Summer of the Century. Summer of Summers."

The weatherman Philip Eden applies a little more science to the process and fleshes out his mathematical formula (unveiled in Wisden 1999) to rank each cricket season according to the amounts of sunshine and rain. On his reckoning, 1947 only just scrapes into the top ten. His Summer of the Century is 1976.

Steven Lynch names A Hundred Matches of the Century. His collection includes some of cricket's most famous battles (The Oval, 1902, Adelaide 1932-33, Headingley 1981) and some of the most obscure (Dover 1926, Hastings 1986 and Zuoz, 1997). Zuoz? Oh, you know, it's in Switzerland ... the France v Germany match.

Statistician Philip Bailey ranks all 18 first-class counties in The County of the Century. The winner is, not surprisingly, Yorkshire, followed by Surrey and (more surprisingly) Kent.

Wisden also contains a unique feature in which leading photographer Patrick Eagar chooses his Images of the Century: the best cricket pictures from each decade, featuring players from Victor Trumper to Jonty Rhodes.

Wisden 2000 includes the first publicly available version of the new Laws of Cricket, due to come into force later this year. The Laws have been completely rewritten, and contain many innovations, including five new umpires' signals and:

a new declaration on The Spirit of Cricket

the introduction of Penalty Runs

a new Law on Throwing

Inevitably, Engel's Notes contain criticism of English cricket after a year in which England slumped to bottom place in the Wisden World Championship, which ranks the Test-playing nations. He writes: "What one suspects, but cannot prove, is that the internal politics involving the various power clusters who have a say in England matters was even more horrific than anything happening on the field."

Engel also calls for the World Cup to be held every two years instead of every four but criticises the programme for the 2000 season which will include almost 50 days of international cricket: "One of the problems with recent England teams has been getting them to regard representing their country as special rather than another day at the office. At this level ... it is not going to feel special for anyone at all."

In the Notes, Engel also expresses alarm about the use of pain-killers, especially by fast bowlers. "I suspect future generations may consider our complacency on this subject barbaric."

He concludes by grumping about a remark made by the chairman of the ECB, Lord MacLaurin, in his autobiography in which he says "it is no longer possible to capture the somnolence of John Arlott's poem `Cricket At Worcester, 1938'". This begins:

"He really ought to leave us snoozers alone," replies Engel. "Do away with somnolence, and you will do away with cricket once and for all. And England with it, probably."

Wisden also includes an impassioned defence of county cricket from the journalist Patrick Collins: "I believe the county game is one of this nation's happier and worthier institutions ... We should destroy it at our peril."

Scyld Berry assesses the great Australian Mark Taylor ("the finest captain of modern times"). After one of the game's saddest years, three of the greats whom we have lost over the past 12 months receive touching tributes from their friends: Malcolm Marshall by Mark Nicholas; Godfrey Evans by Lord Cowdrey; and E. W. Swanton by John Woodcock.

Stephen Fay reviews the game's finances; Pat Gibson writes about the Lord's Taverners, now in their 50th year. And Murray Hedgcock looks back on the 150th anniversary of Wisden's publishers, John Wisden and Co, the firm founded by the bowler known as "The Little Wonder". Hedgcock thinks the success has much to do with Wisden's name: "It is impossible to imagine a cricketing world in which you looked up reliable Smith to check a score; hunted down early editions to augment your run of cherished Jones; or waited eagerly for the spring appearance of the daffodil-hued Robinson."

The main book reviewer in Wisden 2000 is Peter Tinniswood, the creator of The Brigadier, who (battling serious illness as he wrote) brought to the job a rather different approach from the one to which Wisden readers may be accustomed. Of C. B. Fry, he says: "Undoubtedly, Fry's greatest mistake was not to accept the throne of Albania when it was offered in the 1920s. Look what happened to Mr H. D. "Dickie" Bird, who did so without a moment's hesitation in 1998."

In his review of cricket in the media, Marcus Berkmann discovers the Indian edition of Cosmopolitan, which named among its Dream Team of the 11 hunkiest cricketers: Adam Hollioake, whose "deep-frozen calm" can turn "hot, hot, hot"; Jacques Kallis ("the best-looking bum and the sexiest nipples"); and Aday Jadeja ("classy, single, ready to mingle"). Wisden will announce on April 5 whether these qualities have been enough to see them chosen as Cricketers of the Year.

Wisden's Round the World section includes reports from more than 30 countries including Azerbaijan, where the star batsman has learned karate to improve his physique, Cambodia, where the players used a tennis ball at first because they were scared of having to use local medical facilities, and Bahrain, claimed to have the toughest cricket on the planet.

The Chronicle section, always a Wisden highlight, includes items about:

How a batsman in a top South African match batted on after being run out.

How an angry father with a camcorder stopped play in an Under-12 match in Australia - and got the umpire to reverse his decision.

How a club in Devon had to disband because of their poor teas.

How a batsman in Gloucestershire scored a century because his mother came out and agreed to bat with him.

How Tamil gunmen stopped play in Middlesex.

And the story of the most improbable one-day international of the year: Russia v Germany - in Shetland.

Accompanying the Almanack is a free paperback, A Century of Wisden, currently unavailable anywhere else. This is a unique and fascinating record of cricket in the twentieth century. The extracts, chosen by Christopher Lane, have the character of Wisden itself: there is plenty you would expect to find - but it is the unexpected that makes the book so compelling.

So here are Wisden's famous Notes from 1934 on the Bodyline Test series; the report of the Centenary Test of 1977 and the 1981 Headingley Test. You can read the obituary of W. G. Grace and the essay on Don Bradman as a Cricketer of the Year. There are hundred-year-old arguments about the lbw law.

But there is also the obituary (1965) of Peter the Lord's Cat, the story of how Disgruntled Parents Stopped Play (1999), a Californian match from 1903, and a report of a record-breaking innings by an Indian schoolboy: a young man called Sachin Tendulkar.

Wisden 2000 is published on Thursday 6 April 2000 by John Wisden & Co. and distributed by Penguin. Both hardback (ISBN 0-947-76657-X) and soft cover (ISBN 0-947-76658-8) versions are available, and both cost £29.99.