Cricket's Historians

136 Roy Webber and the Society of Cricket Statisticians corrections, mainly in overseas statistics. Webber claims to have begun his compilation in 1926 at the age of 12 and states that he had ‘read and carefully noted over a long period of years’, the following: Scores and Biographies, Volumes 1 to 15 Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanacs ( sic ), 1864 to 1949 Lillywhite’s Cricketers’ Annuals, 1872 to 1900 The Cricketer magazine 1921 to 1949 And ‘many other books and pamphlets on cricket too numerous to mention.’ The omission of the 33 volumes of the magazine ‘Cricket’ and the standard reference books containing detailed scores of games in South Africa and New Zealand is rather surprising. In hindsight what is rather strange is that if Webber was working industriously on compiling cricket statistics from 1926, his name is conspicuous by its absence from the correspondence columns of The Cricketer . Most of the cricket statisticians, from Ashley-Cooper in the 1890s, who later became well known for their published work, either raised queries by way of letters to the cricketing press, or sent in short articles, some of which were published, but there is no sign of Webber until the Cricket Book Society was mooted in 1946. In the absence of pre-war correspondence between Webber and the likes of Gustard or Roberts for example, one feels that Webber more or less completed his Record Book in 1946 single-handed. The launching of that Society brought him in contact, perhaps for the first time, with a number of important statistician-historians, such as Brodribb. Many of the notes which are attached to the tables in the book, plus the final part ‘Miscellaneous Notes’ have the ring of Brodribb about them. Brodribb’s assistance is acknowledged. Others whose help is noted are listed below: • Edward Knight on India. Knight first provided some Indian statistics for The Cricketer in 1947 and continued to supply articles as well as writing letters to the magazine for the next twenty years. He also provided a great deal of data on India, Pakistan andCeylon for Bowen’s The Cricket Quarterly from 1963. Knight, who had