Cricket's Historians

Acknowledgements Since I began researching for this book, I have contacted dozens of authors, initially to secure brief biographical notes of them, but in many cases asking for information on friends and colleagues, many now deceased. To list all those to whom I have spoken would start to create another Index. May I therefore thank them all for their co-operation? There are nevertheless a handful of people who have been harassed almost continuously throughout the writing of this work and thus deserve especial mention and thanks. Martin Wilson fought his way through what I believed to be the final draft. Apart from adjusting my punctuation and other grammatical hiccups, he suggested pieces which required more explanation and indeed pieces which I somehow seemed to overlook. Rob Brooke and Keith Warsop both scanned the original mss from the venerable typewriter and suggested certain adjustments – not to the actual typewriter, but the man who pressed the keys. Derek Drake successfully researched biographical information on a number of mainly pre-1939 historians and cricket writers. Roger Page was kind enough to contact a number of Australian writers and obtain from them biographical notes. Peter Griffiths supplied the Appendix on the ACS personnel and publications, as well as working on the final publication prior to its printing. Finally I must thank the Committee of the ACS for agreeing to publish this ground-breaking volume. As I know from long experience in these matters, the problem with ‘ground-breaking’ books is the impossible one of estimating the potential sales!