Cricket's Historians

118 Differences in Style died in April 1938 aged 35. If he had lived he might have filled the void left by the death of Ashley-Cooper, for Gustard combined his interest in statistics with his study of the history of cricket – an essential combination for any sensible resulting outcome. The only substantial book compiled by Gustard was England v Australia , which was issued just prior to the 1934 Test series. The work begins with ten pages analysing the Australian touring party and then gives well- rounded short biographies of each player with their season-by-season first- class figures. Twenty-two possible England Test candidates are similarly treated. D.R.Jardine is omitted as he had announced his retirement during the winter tour of India. G.O.B.Allen was also omitted, but because he would be unavailable due to injury. The record section includes Test career figures for all players in England v Australia Tests and averages for Australian tourists to England from 1878 including the AIF tour of 1919. The full scores of the 1930 and 1932-33 Test Matches are also given. With the death of Gustard, the guardianship of the Wisden Cricket Records passed to the immensely enthusiastic statistician, E.L.Roberts. His original work was to expand the books on Test Cricket which had been published in the 1920s by William P.H.Sparks and William H.Coleman. These works were scorecards of Test Matches and series averages. In his initial book in 1932, Roberts gave summaries of Test scores, the run aggregates in each series by each team, individual centuries scored and some statistical notes. Two years later he expanded this work to include a Who’s Who of all Test cricketers, but this was a very perfunctory list. No christian names were given. Births (and deaths) were only given for a selection of players, even though those details, in many cases could have been found in Wisden , occasional players were described as left-handed or left-arm bowlers, but Woolley was not so described. The work was simply not consistent. A rival work to Roberts’ 1934 book was The Story of the Tests in England 1880 to 1934 , with the tag ‘containing information never before given in any publication’. The book acknowledges the use of Sparks’ work, in giving the detailed scores of England v Australia in England matches, with notes, some of which deal with unusual coincidences or happenings.