Cricket's Historians

Test Match status is defined and Overseas Publications multiply scores of both inter-colonial matches and Australian international games. This acceptance is clearly illustrated by the comments of J.N.Pentelow in his book England v Australia. The Story of the Test Matches , published by Arrowsmith a year or so later. Pentelow comments: ‘Since I first conceived the idea of this book, Mr Clarence Moody’s Australian Cricket and Cricketers … has come into my hands. On reading the short chapter therein in which he deals with the test games with England, I was so struck with the cogency of his reasonings as to what were and what were not test games, that I immediately set to work to reconsider the whole matter; and finally I came to a determination to follow Mr Moody’s list.’ Pentelow then proceeds to quote Moody. Pentelow’s book gives the detailed scores (without maiden overs) and brief reports of the Tests from 1877. His record section includes leading averages up to the end of the 1894-95 series. Moody’s two other cricket titles both published in 1898 were George Giffen’s autobiography With Bat and Ball and South Australian Cricket . After the First World War he moved to New South Wales and reported mainly on horse racing. Moody died in Manly, New South Wales in November 1937. The individual colonial cricketing entities published annual reports, the Tasmanian one beginning as early as 1866-67. In 1895-96 another attempt in Australia was made to launch a national cricket yearbook, Australian Cricket Annual . This was 190 pages in length and fairly comprehensive. The compiler was the journalist, John Corbett Davis. He had been born in London in 1868, but emigrated to Australia as a boy and trained as a journalist in Sydney. In addition to his journalistic work Davis was very much involved in the administration of cricket both in New South Wales and by the Australian Board of Control. He managed the New South Wales Team, including on a tour to New Zealand in 1889-90. He was at times editor of a number of Australian newspapers. Unfortunately his Australian cricket annual survived for just three editions. Elected a life 68