Cricket's Historians

254 The Booming Market for Cricket Books moved on to be editor of the Australian Cricket Journal which covered the Australian Cricket Society’s branches throughout the continent. The Journal appeared between 1985 and 1990. In content this magazine was a cross between The Cricket Society Journal and The Cricket Statistician . Christopher John Harte was born in England, but moved to Australia in 1974. A journalist, he wrote several books on cricket tours as well as contributing to a variety of publications. In 1987 his book, The History of The Sheffield Shield, was published, the first comprehensive history of that competition. Harte gives potted scores of all the matches and nearly another hundred pages of statistics and tables. There is also a summary of the pre-Shield inter-colonial matches and a detailed essay on how the Shield competition was established through Lord Sheffield. The book is a good summary of the Shield and, as is indicated, is well supported with statistics. Harte next turned his attention to his adopted state and in 1991 published The History of the South Australian Cricket Association . Lavishly illustrated, its account of the Association is culled from the extant Minute Books and the local press reports. There are brief biographies of the players, with career records. Harte raised a number of controversial points, which upset the South Australian cricket authorities though he had been commissioned by the Cricket Association to write the book. He was taken to court for stealing 1,009 copies of the book, together with photographs and films, from the Cricket Association. Harte claimed that the photographs were going to be thrown away and that he took copies of the book because he had not been adequately paid. The court found in favour of the Cricket Association. Harte was given a 10-month suspended jail sentence and fined $A1,000, as well as paying $A20,000 in restitution. Harte was also writing A History of Australian Cricket and this was published by Andre Deutsch in 1993 (it was part of a series of histories by the publishers). The book was written in a style more appropriate to the tabloid press, with suggestions of scandals that were not always supported by hard evidence. Harte returned in the early 1990s to live in England. Harte’s book in fact covered much the same ground as Jack Pollard’s