Cricket's Historians

290 Historians Dig Deeper Sports 1838-72 gives us exactly what the title states. A scholarly work befitting its author’s background as a history professor and a plethora of endnotes refer the reader to sources (particularly contemporary newspapers) which will be invaluable to later researchers. Before leaving America, one must mention Cricket in America, 1710–2000 by P.David Sentance. The ‘1710’ of the title promises more thorough treatment of the earliest period of American cricket. However, the years to 1838 are covered in no more than two or three pages, though later periods are dealt with more thoroughly. In South Africa Andre Odendaal researched and wrote The Story of an African Game: Black Cricketers and the Unmasking of one of Cricket’s Greatest Myths. South Africa 1850-2003. This work reveals the extent of non-white cricket in South Africa from early mission school cricket through to the present time. It is well illustrated and deals thoroughly with its subject. Odendaal was a professor in history and heritage studies at the University of the Western Cape and is the author of many books on South African politics and sport. In Australia, Bill Reynolds researched below ‘first-class’ level to compile A History of Country Week Cricket in Western Australia 1907-2007. The book contains notes on the 243 clubs that have been involved in Country Week Carnivals during the hundred years, as well as a season-by-season report on the matches. Biographies of the principal personalities are also included. The book is complementary to Anthony Barker’s The WACA , which was published in 1998. William Perival Reynolds was born in Yarloop, Western Australia in December 1938 and worked on the family farm, before becoming an agricultural consultant. Other notable present-day Australian cricket historians include Ross Smith and Kenneth Williams. Smith, born in December 1956 in Launceston, is employed in the Community History Centre in Launceston. Apart from his research into Tasmanian cricket he has specialized in recording all the sixes hit in Test Match cricket. Kenneth Williams, born in East Malvern in December 1944 and educated at Melbourne University, was a school teacher by profession. He was largely responsible for the