Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2003 - What the papers say

The annual appearance of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is supposed to herald the start of summer and the beginning of a new cricket season. Frank Keating, the distinguished Guardian sports-writer, usually referred to Wisden, with its trademark yellow cover, as "the delectable primrose doorstop". This year, though, Frank was less complimentary, after the decision to put a photograph on the cover for the first time.

"Cricket's misguided mania for modernity and marketing puts it in danger of forfeiting its core supporters," he wrote last week. "Fourteen editors and 140 successive annual editions cannot be bad for trad, but now even the sport's bible Wisden is dropping from its cover its timeless symbol, the cherished and antique Victorian woodcut. Instead is a humdrum all-action picture of Michael Vaughan. It would serve someone right if the 2003 almanack did not top the best-sellers' lists and if Vaughan posted a string of ducks this summer."

London's Evening Standard accused Tim de Lisle, the first one-off editor in the Almanack's history (Matthew Engel returns from overseas next year), of "an ugly swish across the line". Ian Wooldridge went further in the Daily Mail, enquiring not-so-gently whether de Lisle had "lost his marbles", and suggesting splenetically that sticking a picture on Wisden is like "putting Judas on the cover of the Bible".

This was all rather over the top, especially as diehards who really object to the new cover can order an old-style one free of charge. Part of the trouble was that there wasn't very much else to write about, as the nature of the content between the covers was embargoed until the eve of publication day - today.

Which means that now people can stop judging the book by its cover, and go on what's inside instead.

Most people have liked what they have found. In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Briggs calls it "a cracking read", and applauded some of the modernising moves (better signposting, cleaner typefaces) inside: "Reading the Almanack often inspires the same sense of elitism and privilege that goes with membership of a private club. The fact that the unwary novice could rarely find his (or, very occasionally, her) way to next year's international fixtures (page 1745 this year) was conveniently ignored."

In The Guardian, David Hopps was characteristically thoughtful. "Wisden is a wonderful book, still worthy of respect in an age when respect is not willingly granted. But its annual marketing con-trick is even more remarkable. Its yearly wrestling with tradition - this year, ye gods, a black-and-white picture on the front cover: is nothing sacred? - enables it to retain its historic importance without ever quite losing the spirit of the times.

"The dustjacket might be yellow, but the editor's notes are invariably puce. Tim de Lisle, in the editorship for one year, is only 40 and shows few signs of excessive passing of the port. But Speed's resistance to England's attempts to switch their World Cup tie from Harare goads de Lisle into traditionally trenchant condemnation."

The Independent confines itself to reporting that same broadside, and the identity of the Five Cricketers of the Year (Matthew Hayden, Adam Hollioake, Nasser Hussain, Shaun Pollock and Michael Vaughan). Richard Gibson wrote: "The annual publication pours scorn on Malcolm Speed, the ICC's chief executive, and criticises the decision to allow games to take place in Zimbabwe instead of moving them to South Africa. The ICC's turning of a blind eye to protesters against Robert Mugabe's government at Australia's match in Bulawayo, the request for Andy Flower and Henry Olonga to relinquish their black armbands of protest, and punishment of England's refusal to play in Zimbabwe were also condemned. `The ICC ended up doing something that ought not to have been possible,' read the notes by the editor. `Washing their hands at the same time as burying their heads in the sand'."

Writing in The Times, Christopher Martin-Jenkins approves of the changes. "The truth is, every editor likes to dabble in something new, especially in the age of marketing gimmicks. We live in a less reticent age and increasingly a pictorial one. A cover photograph of Michael Vaughan at a moment of triumph, even in a year when England were again dazzled by Australia's brilliance, is as good an image as any for an almanack that still deals primarily in British cricket.

"What matters far more than the outward and visible is the integrity of Wisden's heart and soul and these Tim de Lisle, the caretaker editor, has preserved manfully. He has done it, incidentally, while modestly leaving his name off the cover. It would normally have appeared roughly where Vaughan's waistline now protrudes from the yellow background in discreet Test-match white. Inside, new readers are encouraged by a quick guide round the book (although the contents that follow are themselves clear enough) and they can thus discover, if they really are new, who won the Ashes (on page 1712)."

CMJ concludes: "Whether you like the changed cover or not, you will find in the 2003 Wisden more meat than ever. As always, the danger that lurks inside is that, in delving to check a fact, a cricket-lover is in danger of a long diversion. Broken down on a motorway or cast away on a desert island, he would be offered hours of consolation."

A vote in favour from The Thunderer, then. But underneath CMJ's article, there's the odd storm cloud in a supplementary piece from David Frith, the former editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly, whose book Bodyline Autopsy is named inside the Almanack as the best cricket book of last year. But he's not a fan of the cover: "Having [Vaughan] on the front of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, just as he has been depicted already on the covers of magazines and brochures, is a pretty ordinary move. What if Vaughan is again the world's outstanding batsman next year? Does he feature again? Or will the second-best be depicted?"

Warming to the task, Frith observes: "If it is to be Vaughan on the cover again in 2004, it is to be hoped that at least he is shown playing that rapturous cover-drive, rather than displaying one of the most obnoxious of modern symbols of sport, the clenched fist. The shock of this image across Wisden's face is as profound as if one were to see HMS Ark Royal pushing down the Solent with a giant canvas dangling from the bridge, portraying Noah."

One-all, then, but the Times leader column has the casting vote. While a picture on the cover is, it says, "as shocking in its way as the appearance of a lap-dancer in the Long Room at Lord's" for cricket traditionalists, the item itself is "a fetching action shot" of Michael Vaughan.

A vote in favour, we think. And the leader continues by speculating whether other "Establishment organs" might follow suit. "For the clergy, Crockford's Clerical Directory is the equivalent of Wisden. Might it not be improved by borrowing from its cricketing cousin? A fetching cover photograph of the cleric of the moment, whether Rowan Williams [the Archbishop of Canterbury] in druidic dress or a nun with wimpole provocatively askew, could help sales." A nation holds its breath ...