ACS Oveseas First-Class Annual 2013

The policy of this Annual, in all such cases, is to present the information that is available and to leave a space where the missing information would have been; but it should surely be possible for administrators and scorers to ensure that full details are recorded and supplied. Turning to events on the field of play, reference was made last year to a number of matches in which the ball achieved a remarkable ascendancy over the bat. This has been in evidence again this year: this volume includes Test scores of 45 and 49, both inflicted by South Africa and involving individual bowling analyses of 5-7 and 6-8 respectively, figures redolent of the earliest days of Test cricket. At domestic first-class level, this year’s Annual also includes two separate first-class scores of 26 all out (one of them against a victory target of only 64). This is not to say that bowlers had everything their own way. Bangladesh twice improved its highest-ever Test total this year, besides recording its first individual Test double century; while the record for the highest individual score in Sri Lankan domestic cricket was broken twice in a fortnight. The Indian cricket authorities completely overhauled their domestic programme in 2012/13, meaning among other things that the number of Ranji Trophy league matches was greatly increased. The result was the busiest ever first-class season in India, with 132 matches. This means that India now has by some margin the largest first-class programme of any country, with the exception of England (typically about 170 matches in recent seasons). India has also been the subject of an interesting new initiative in the somewhat specialised world of cricket annuals: the new Wisden India , the first edition of which appeared early in 2013. This is reminiscent of Wisden Australia , which it will be recalled was launched in 1998 and ran for eight editions. But there is a significant difference: unlike Wisden Australia , or for that matter Wisden itself, Wisden India has not felt it necessary to include full scores of its own country’s domestic first-class matches. It is not, therefore, in any real sense the successor to the long-running Indian Cricket , the demise of which after its 2004 edition was one of the factors that prompted the ACS to consider launching its own Annual. In conclusion I must as always express my appreciation to Pete Griffiths and Philip Bailey at CricketArchive (www.cricketarchive.com ) for making this Annual possible. This sentiment is no less sincere for the fact that it is repeated every year, and the same comment applies to my statement that responsibility for any and all errors rests squarely with me as editor. John Bryant Editor 20 Wilton Square London N1 3DL overseasannual@acscricket.com October 2013 6 Preface