Cricket's Historians

Chapter 14 Bowen Bows Out For a decade, Rowland Bowen’s personality enlivened the small world of cricket historians. 1970 saw the finale of his endeavours. His book Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development Throughout the World was published by Eyre & Spottiswoode; in December 1970 the final issue of The Cricket Quarterly was dispatched to subscribers. Judging by the final sentences in his signing off piece, when the magazine closed he was not sanguine as to the effects all his scholarship had had on the cricket world: “Some time ago, we recall the late N.S.Curnow saying that it was wrong to try and correct mistaken or non-existent facts and figures held by cricket enthusiasts: such people were best left to their pleasures, for fear they would come to a greater ill without them. Perhaps he is right? When is man going to get away from his nursery and beliefs and illusions acquired in his youth?” It is impossible to try and compare Bowen’s history with its immediate predecessors – those of Altham/Swanton and Parker. To attempt to do so would be like comparing the virtues of the elephant against those of the lion. They are different animals. As has previously been commented upon, Altham/Swanton and Parker, after some early historical chapters, were both writing of cricket at the top level and of cricket largely based in England or England teams touring overseas. Bowen, in the same space, surveyed the game at all levels in every country, in which he believed 199