Cricket's Historians

150 Mainly County Histories and Overseas Annuals and Ron Yeomans. Women’s cricket was well covered. In 1952 J.W.Speight took over as editor and then, for the final issue only (April-May 1953), Tim Saunders. When it switched to national distribution, it was published by Cricket Publications Ltd of 51 Mount St, Mayfair, London W.1. Although this English magazine failed to attract sufficient subscribers, a very gratifying development in the 1940s was the first appearance of robust cricket annuals in overseas Test playing countries. In India the rather amateur efforts of P.N.Polishwalla during the 1930s have been noted. In 1939-40, Muni Lal launched The Crickinia which ran until 1944-45 and provided scores and some data on the major matches played in India during the Second World War. In 1947 Indian Cricket edited by S.K.Gurunathan and published by Kasturi & Sons Ltd of Madras appeared for the first time. It was modelled largely on Wisden and for nearly 60 years was destined to be the standard work of reference for statisticians (though rivals attempted to take its place) The Record Section was the annual’s weak point and it was never really satisfactory throughout the annual’s life, despite several changes of editor. It began as just one section on Ranji Trophy performances, later came a separate section ‘World Records’ and brief sections on other Indian Competitions, each on its own. The editor did not tackle the problem of classification of matches in India head on, so, for example, performances by Indian players against overseas touring sides were in limbo, as were the famous Vizianagram matches of 1930-31. Gurunathan was the sports editor of The Hindu and in 1946 compiled Twelve Years of Ranji Trophy 1934-1945 which gave the detailed scores and thus linked to the first issue of his annual. He died in May 1966 aged 58. A young enthusiast, G.C.Baker, compiled The South African Cricket Almanac for 1949-50. Graham Charsley Baker was a Rhodes Scholar at the time he produced his annual, which covered the season 1949-50, and was then aged 20. He died in February 1977. Although the annual made only a single appearance, its basic format was taken up by the South African Cricket Association, who published a South African Cricket Annual