Cricket's Historians

226 The Formation of the Association of Cricket Statisticians Series – this was one of the better assessments of that notorious Ashes rubber. Staying with Test cricket, David Frith was the compiler of England v Australia: A Pictorial History published in 1978. This was a volume which would be updated and reissued on several occasions. Frith is a fanatical collector of cricket memorabilia and the illustrations in the book demonstrate the depth of his interest and knowledge. Each Test Match is briefly described and in most cases has several photographs attached – there are about 1,000 illustrations, many of them appearing a book publication for the first time. Frith was busy writing other less extensive volumes – Archie Jackson (1974), The Fast Men (1975), Cricket Gallery (1976). His book The Golden Age of Cricket has previously been noted. Despite this prodigious output (including his editorial work for The Cricketer ) Frith maintained a very high standard of historical accuracy. The other author renowned for his attention to detail, Irving Rosenwater, wrote three more short, but carefully studied, works in the later 1970s – A.J.Gaston (1975), Cricket Books – The Great Collectors (1976) and Arthur Langford (1977), then in 1978 came his magnum opus, Sir Donald Bradman . It is worth quoting Alan Gibson’s review: “There is also a good deal of repetition in the book and, although it was in the nature of the exercise that we should have heaps of statistics, some of those in the text could have been switched to the appendix. Mr Rosenwater’s style, though lucid, is prolix. I recommend to him one of Orwell’s Rules for Writers: ‘If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.’ This is curious because Mr Rosenwater is capable of writing a graceful essay, and is also a pleasant poet, and poetry is a disciple which should teach economy in words”. Despite this rather barbed review, Rosenwater’s biography still remains pre-eminent. Later works have not improved upon it. For bibliophiles, the standard work of reference was published in