Cricket's Historians

Differences in Style He had been studying cricket history and its related statistics for some years prior to that, his first letter in The Cricketer in September 1922, was sent from the Y.M.C.A. in Tottenham Court Road, London. It was nothing more than his selection of the teams to represent the North and the South that season. His first published book appeared in 1925 and dealt with the statistics of Somerset cricketers; in 1929 he compiled a history of Somerset with biographies of all their players, but this never appeared in print. Gustard developed a great friendship with Pentelow and due to his guidance, the first of many articles by Gustard was featured in The Cricketer in 1931; the following year he had a regular column in the magazine and in 1933 began his informative series, ‘The History of Cricket Overseas’. The first article was concerned with Australia and he began by tackling head-on the, then, vexed question of the start date for first-class cricket in that country. Gustard elected to choose the Tasmania v Victoria match of 1851. This milestone is nowadays automatically assumed as the logical answer, rather than the first New South Wales v Victoria game of 1856, for which some historians opted. Gustard deals with the Test Playing countries of the 1930s in turn, before he moves on to South America. Here he suggests the first Argentina North v South match in 1891 as the commencement of first-class cricket. Continuing through the non-Test playing countries, Gustard gives ‘first- class’ averages for leading players in the United States, Canada and Bermuda. He takes a much more liberal approach to the subject, than later statisticians would. Clearly he is swayed by the possible expansion and development of top class cricket in these countries. The Second World War was to alter these perceptions. In May 1934, Gustard suggested a list of overseas current teams that should be regarded as first-class – one such example is the representative Egyptian eleven. Gustard’s views drew swift responses from readers of The Cricketer in particular from Sir Home Gordon, E.L.Roberts and Antony Weigall – the last two will be featured later. Unfortunately Gustard was taken seriously ill in 1936. Following an operation he seemed to have recovered, but he had a relapse in 1937 and 117