Cricket's Historians

158 More County Histories and The Cricket Society grows the Competition from 1873 to the Present Day. The Webber ship was caught on the hidden rocks that are the Championship’s pre-1890 period. He failed to investigate the annuals and the press which published reports and notes on county cricket before that date, and instead published County Championship tables which were broadly speaking his own invention for the seasons 1873 to 1889. In 1960 came Webber’s The Phoenix History of Cricket . In 21 pages Webber describes the development of cricket in the British Isles from the beginning to 1859. In the next 13 pages he gives paragraphs on the development of cricket overseas, not only in the existing Test playing countries, but also North and South America, continental Europe and such places as Hong Kong, which paragraphs, perhaps not too accurate, do give the reader some basic detail which the Altham history omitted. From then on the book is largely devoted to Test cricket with occasional pieces on the County Championship. Webber does comment that the publishers cut 30,000 words from his original manuscript. It is therefore unfair to be too critical. Arlott in his review comments: ‘Roy Webber wisely did not attempt to compete with the classical sweep of H.S.Altham’s established – indeed classic – History. Rather he followed his own particular fact-recording bent.’ The year prior to Webber’s history, the first comprehensive history of cricket in Australia was published. Alban George (Johnnie) Moyes, the author, was born in Gladstone, South Australia, in 1893. He played for South Australia before the First World War and, briefly, for Victoria after that war. Educated at St Peter’s College, Adelaide and Adelaide University, he had served in the Australian Services in the war and represented the Dominions in matches at Lord’s and The Oval in 1918. Taking up journalism he worked on various Australian newspapers, including the Sydney Daily Telegraph . After the Second World War, in which he served as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he began to work for ABC as a cricket commentator. He was to continue in that job until his death in 1963. His first cricket book had been a biography of Don Bradman, published in 1948. His book