Cricket's Historians

More County Histories and The Cricket Society grows played for Ireland from 1861 to 1878 and his uncle also represented the country. The author himself had 20 years of international cricket. Despite Hone’s concerns, the book has become the standard work of reference on the subject. William Patrick Hone was born in Monkstown, co.Dublin in August 1886. He was educated at Wellington and then Trinity College, Dublin. By profession a railway engineer, he worked in both Canada and India. He fought in France in the First World War, being awarded the MC at Verdun. Hone died in Clondalkin, Dublin in February 1976. His brother, Joseph, a well-known historian and novelist, assisted him in writing the book, providing the political background, while Derek Scott, the leading Irish cricket statistician and later Hon Secretary of the Irish Cricket Union, is thanked for the record section. Derek Scott was a very early member of The Society of Cricket Statisticians and a founding member of the ACS. Although he is now retired from office, he was for many years editor of the Irish Cricket Union Yearbook. Two biographies issued in the latter half of the 1950s demand attention. They are opposite ends of a pole, one being purely statistical, the other verging on the romantic. Bradman The Great by Bertram Wakley was the ultimate analysis of every first-class innings played by Bradman. Each innings is detailed with a description of the match and Bradman’s part in it – in some cases 1,200 words. After these matches, which occupy the bulk of the book come over 60 pages of tables and analysis – even a section on Bradman’s batting performances on rain-affected wickets occupy three pages. Wakley has discovered that Bradman survived 93 dropped catches, but 269 of his innings were chanceless. His average time to reach the milestones of 50, 100 and 200 are presented in another table. The book is very well produced and runs to 317 pages in hardback. It is still the template for any one wishing to complete such a work on a cricketer’s statistics. Bertram ‘Bertie’ Joseph Wakley was born in July 1917, shortly after his father had been killed in action in France. Educated at Wellington and Christ Church, Oxford, he served in the Mediterranean theatre during the Second World War and was called to the Bar in 1948. From 1973 to 1992 167