Cricket's Historians

Introduction who accept the data already to hand and try to re-interpret that data. The two groups are not exclusive, many, maybe the majority, are to a greater or lesser extent a combination of the two. A third category which comes into play, not exclusively in cricket, but largely in this sport, at least in historical terms, is the statistician. Cricket statisticians are often considered by the cricketing public to be historians, but they are as a body neither historians or in the wider context of the definition, statisticians. One of the very few professional statisticians who did publish cricket statistical work was G.H.Wood, but he was exceptional. His career will be dealt with as this book unfolds. As a generalisation, cricket statisticians like to see everything neatly divided into separate parcels. They can then happily play with the figures which are contained in each parcel, but history is not like that and the forcing of data into strict confines has been the cause of many a confrontation between the cricket historians and the statisticians. Figures are, whether one likes it or not, an integral part of cricket. The compilation of ‘cricket records’ has been a hobby of many ever since detailed cricket scores began to be published and these ‘records’ necessarily involve historical research. I have therefore written two books in one, in that I have followed the history of ‘cricket records’ in parallel with the general history of the game’s development. The two volumes of Padwick and Stephen Gibbs’ Post Padwick provide the student with a splendid bibliography of cricket. One could argue that every title listed in those three volumes has some historical and/or statistical content, however tenuous, but it is not my intention to discuss by any means all or most of the works listed by Padwick – to do so would simply be re-writing Padwick with additional comments. I have therefore not, as a rule, included in this present work instructional books, autobiographies, most biographies (especially those dealing with contemporary players) and books on ‘local’ cricket clubs, except at county level, or the overseas equivalent. On the other hand cricket periodicals have been studied and the history of the principal ones are discussed, because many contain articles of 8