Cricket's Historians

More County Histories and The Cricket Society grows long stint was the most valuable one which Arlott performed. Although his reviews were never over critical, he was able to pull out, from the many titles that flooded the post-war market, those works that merited a little more attention. Although the majority of Arlott’s cricket writing outside of newspapers or magazines were ‘tour’ books, (starting with the 1946 Indians) or vignettes for county cricketers’ benefit brochures, two books during the 1950s comprise essays of wider scope and it is worth quoting The Cricketer review of the first, The Echoing Green . This was published by Longmans, Green & Co in 1952. The long review closes: ‘Few writers understand at once the importance of cricket as a mirror of social history, of cricketers as a guild of craftsmen, or the game as an educational force, and can pass readily from the participants in the First Test Match ever played to such modern problems as lack of ground- staff apprenticeship and excessive pitch preparation. Mr Arlott examines all these as easily as he writes on bowling- machines and travelling conditions and concludes with a series of personal pen-portraits which challenge comparison with those of Mr Robertson-Glasgow. Again I find it impossible to say which I like best. This is a very good book indeed.’ By coincidence Cricket All The Year was reviewed on the same page. It was the first cricket book written by Neville Cardus in 17 years. The inter- war period had been the old master’s time; the review did not quite match the one handed out to Arlott. In 1953 Arlott wrote Cricket in a series called ‘The Pleasures of Life’ issued by Burke Publishing Co Ltd. The preceding volumes were on ‘Drink’, ‘Food’, ‘Women’, ‘Gardens’ and ‘Clothes’. Arlott’s was a more substantial volume. The Bibliography at the close of the book underlines the extent of the author’s researches. In 1957 came the first sizeable history of Hampshire County Cricket. No less than four authors are credited on the title page and that, 155