Cricket's Historians

208 Bowen Bows Out Another statistician who joined the new Quarterly magazine was Barry Desmond AnselmMcCaully. Born in 1933 he was a solicitor by profession. His name first appears in Playfair Monthly in 1967, when he provided the end of season statistics. He remained with The Cricketer Quarterly until 1985 and for three years(1983-85) was in charge of the Record Section of Wisden . Latterly he suffered ill-health and died in Poole, Dorset in November 1998. Playfair Cricket Monthly ceased, as has been noted, in April 1973. Before passing on, a brief survey of its life is worthy of comment. The two feature writers who wrote articles throughout its existence were Rex Alston and Neville Cardus – the latter’s essays were also reproduced in book form. Following Webber’s death, Michael Fordham compiled most of the statistics. Gordon Ross, aided by other well-known journalists, wrote the Test Match reports. Serious historical essays came from Diana Rait Kerr from 1966 to 1971, and her successor at Lord’s, Stephen Green, provided regular pieces from July 1970 to the closure. The principal overseas correspondents were Frank Tyson from Australia (the former England fast bowler had taken a teaching post there), Rusi Modi from India and Geoffrey Chettle from South Africa. The Leagues in Lancashire were covered by Arnold Whipp, the B.B.C. scorer, who drowned whilst on a bird watching expedition in March 1968. From the statistical viewpoint, A.H.Wagg caused a fair rumpus when the full scores, which he had dug out of the Indian papers, of the 1930-31 Vizianagram matches, were printed in the magazine in December 1962. These games featured not only the leading Indian players of the day, but also J.B.Hobbs and H.Sutcliffe. The arguments as to whether these matches rank as first- class or not has rumbled on ever since. Many of the letter-writers to the magazine were the same familiar names, also found in The Cricketer – Irving Rosenwater, Jack Burrell, Rob Brooke, Leslie Newnham, Tony Woodhouse, H.S.Scales and Gordon Tratalos are examples. Some of these have been noted previously, some will appear later, but a word about Jack Burrell; he first came to the notice of the cricket reading public with his column ‘In The West’. This began in The