Cricket's Historians

The Booming Market for Cricket Books appointed editor of The Journal of Sports History . In 1985 George Allen & Unwin published Michael Rundell’s The Dictionary of Cricket , the first serious attempt at such a work since W.J. Lewis’ book of 1934. Rundell was managing editor of English Language Teaching Dictionaries at Longman’s. As such he would seem to have been the ideal person for the task. Unfortunately he was unaware of Professor John Ferguson’s published additions to Lewis which had appeared in The Cricket Quarterly and The Cricket Statistician . Rundell, a Cambridge graduate, also failed to make a chronological systematic search through cricket publications issued since Lewis. The book was reissued in 1989, but no attempt was made to remedy the faults, which had been clearly pointed out in various book reviews – an opportunity lost. A later attempt at the same subject was John Eddowes’ The Language of Cricket , published in 1997. In the introductory chapter, the author suggests that many early cricket words come from Northern France, thus reinforcing Rowland Bowen’s theory for the origins of the game. Robin Marlar in his book review, praises the work, but hopes for a second edition when the many errors can be eliminated. In the same year as Rundell’s book, Derek Barnard’s An Index to Wisden Cricketers’Almanack 1864-1984 was published. The author was, at that time, the deputy headmaster of Tunbridge Wells Grammar School. The book updates Pogson’s 1944 Index and improves upon it, but the author is not as thorough as J.H.St.J.McIlwaine, who indexed the eight volumes of The Cricket Quarterly . Its usefulness is that all the obituaries in the almanack are listed. The 1980s saw a spate of biographies of retired, often deceased, cricketers, as opposed to today’s increasing trend for biographies of current cricketers. David Lemmon was responsible for books on A.P.Freeman, J.W.H.T.Douglas and A.P.F.Chapman. They were workmanlike efforts, but revealed few glimpses of the real personality. Alan Ross wrote entertainingly about Ranjitsinhji, though a few years later Simon Wilde did a more thorough investigation into his non-cricketing activities. Gerald Howat tackled Walter Hammond and Christopher Douglas investigated 259