Words on the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack Words on the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack Nothing captures the spirit of cricket quite like its 150-year-old annual Read next by: Matthew Engel England’s Andrew Flintoff consoles Australia’s Brett Lee during the memorable 2005 Ashes series The word “unique” has been devalued by its overuse in the media – by sports journalists in particular – along with many other words such as “tragedy”, “genius”, “brilliant”, “fury” and “refute”. Next week, however, is a landmark in the history of a truly unique sporting institution: Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, founded in 1864, will be publishing its 150th edition. And few other organisations have worked harder to ensure that words such as “unique” are used only when appropriate. In the countries where cricket is important (and, since India is one of them, they include almost a third of the global population) the word “Wisden” conjures instant recognition. “He’s a walking Wisden,” one might say of someone crammed full of cricketing facts.

“The Bible of cricket,” it is called to the point of cliché – to which one former editor would reply that maybe the Bible was the Wisden of religion. It is also described as infallible – frequently and erroneously. I know about its fallibility because I was that former editor – for 12 years, in two separate terms between 1993 and 2007 – and was associated with it for almost 20. Every one of the book’s mistakes was like a hammer-blow to me: we will come to the story of the “Wisden willie” later. However, the book does work exceptionally (perhaps uniquely) hard to eliminate errors, which is one factor in its reputation. The original 1864 edition of Wisden Only one factor, though. At first sight, Wisden is a dauntingly fat book (1,584 pages in 2013), full of stats and small type about a complicated sport. It began as a 112-page pocket book and, although two of the dimensions have remained stable, you need a very wide pocket to contain it now.

Deep too: the original edition cost an old shilling (5p) and this year’s retails at £50 – an increase that is 12 times the rate of inflation. The original edition looks useless: the scores it reported were mostly ancient, and the pages were eked out with bizarre extraneous matter such as the lengths of canals, the rules of quoits and the battles of the Wars of the Roses. One might also say that the 2013 Wisden is useless, since the gamut of statistical information is available free of charge from other sources on the internet. All of which is to miss the point. For a start, Wisden has actually been a spectacular hedge against inflation. The record price for an entire set of originals is £130,000. An 1864 edition alone can go for up to £25,000. In the pink, 1886 The chief reason for Wisden’s endurance is that it kept appearing. No. 23 failed to emerge in 1886, but it popped out a year later, along with the 1887, so that the chain remained unbroken.

At the time, it was just one of several competing Victorian cricket almanacks. Its rivals withered; Wisden never missed again, even in wartime, when the match reports were fewer but the obituary voluminous. It was founded by John Wisden, a small (five-foot-nothing) but very skilful bowler known as “The Little Wonder” who eked out his earnings from the game by opening a “cricket and cigar depot”. The almanack was just an adjunct to what became a successful sporting equipment business. He died in 1884, aged only 57 and heirless, which could have been an obvious cue for the book’s disappearance. The 1916 edition, with a tribute to WG Grace Rescue came in the shape of a young man called Charles Pardon, who took over as editor, salvaged the 1886 edition and began pepping up the contents. And though Charles died even more prematurely, aged 40 in 1890, he was succeeded by his younger brother Sydney, who was to remain editor for 35 years. The Pardons just had an instinct.

They created a book that at once strove to be authoritative, accurate and complete, yet encompassed a discreet whiff of showbiz. In 1889 Charles published the first sepia portraits that would mutate into the Five Cricketers of the Year, cricket’s definitive honours board. In 1901, Sydney began the editorialising that would become enshrined as Notes by the Editor, still seized upon as a quasi-papal sermon on the state of cricket – a game with an exceptional gift for finding itself in perpetual crisis. (Sydney once accused the selectors of the England Test team of “touching the confines of lunacy”; I trust I was as trenchant, if more subtle, when commenting on the egregious International Cricket Council.) Radically redesigned, 1938 edition Wisden seems to be the exact opposite: a model of unflappability. It offers the illusion of timelessness, which is at the heart of cricket’s appeal. The book has changed, but (except for a big bang and very overdue redesign in 1938) has almost always done so discreetly, thoughtfully and only a bit belatedly.

In 1981, when John Woodcock became editor, its literary quality began improving. Later, the tone became lighter and the balance shifted towards words rather than stats. The current editor, Lawrence Booth, has brought in a new generation of writers. Yet Wisden has mastered the Catholic Church’s skill (indeed, of late, it has managed it rather better) in giving its random accretions of tradition an aura of holiness: the ex-cathedra Notes; the sacred Five; the solemn but anecdotal obituaries; the daffodil-yellow cover; the woodcut of two old-time cricketers on the cover; keeping the pedantic final k on almanac; even the hideous Playbill title font, in which “WISDEN” appears as on a Western wanted poster (I should have got rid of it). The first picture on the cover (2003) was greeted, semi-seriously, as an act of sacrilege. All this disguises a frantic, sometimes panic-stricken, production process. By rights, Wisden should itself be history.

English cricket, having sold itself to satellite TV for short-term financial gain, has lost much of its audience – and overseas, Wisden’s prestige has always far exceeded its sales. The traditional long form of the game, the almanack’s stock-in-trade, is under threat globally. The internet could have been the final blow. In fact, sales peaked at 50,000 as late as 2006, when Wisden reported a thrilling and long-awaited English triumph over Australia. And though sales in more humdrum years have been drifting down closer to 30,000 than 40, the pace of decline has been so gentle as to defy gravity. It remains profitable, if not very profitable. Reaching its century, 1963 Yet even the air of permanence is an illusion. The ownership pattern of John Wisden & Co, which remained a brand of cricket bats until recent times, was always tortuous (as explained in a beautifully written corporate history, by Robert Winder, commissioned for the 150th). Even during my association with the almanack, it fell under four different owners.

The consortium that originally employed me sold the book in 1993 to Sir Paul Getty, the third-generation oil billionaire converted to cricket by Mick Jagger while recovering from drug addiction. Getty was at that time eyeing up Britain for ailing good causes to support. Wisden was not in that much distress, but it needed an owner who would love it, which this one did, in an eccentrically detached, romanticised way. The regime was short on strategic direction, but it was a glorious era to be Wisden’s editor, partly because the owner’s patronage gave me access to the best contacts book and the best salon in London: the Getty box at Lord’s, where the company outshone the cricket. Not looking particularly 21st century, 2000 And Paul was wholly innocent of our unfinest hour: the night circa 1995 when a delegation visited an attic in some London college where a young man was operating a cricket scores service for the benefit mainly of Indian expats in the US. This operated via something called the internet, of which we had vaguely heard. Unfortunately, that night this magical system failed to work, and we went away shaking our heads.

When I asked how one might make money out of this thing, the young man scornfully told me that his company, Cricinfo, was interested only in the good of cricket. In June 2000, the idealistic collective sold a quarter of its shares to an Indian company in a $37m deal, and became paper-millionaires, at least briefly. Three years later, after the dot-com bust, Wisden bought Cricinfo for buttons. At the same time, Wisden’s own cricket magazine bought out its only rival. Wisden’s future, as I returned to editing after a stint in the US, looked set fair. The controversial first cover photo, 2003 At that moment Paul Getty died. He had shied away from a plan to hand Wisden to a trust, and instead bequeathed it to his son Mark. In Paul, the Getty entrepreneurial gene had skipped a generation; in Mark it returned with a vengeance. He fattened up Cricinfo, sold it very profitably on to US giant ESPN, sold the magazine to Sky TV and in 2008 offered the rump of the almanack to Bloomsbury Publishing, inviting no other bids.

The Getty intervention, designed to save Wisden, ended up enriching the family and enfeebling the book. Its independence gone, it is now one book a year among Bloomsbury’s thousand. Things could be much worse. Bloomsbury is a sympathetic owner: executive director Richard Charkin was on the old Wisden board. The deal gave Wisden instant reference-book siblings including Who’s Who (founded 1849) and the general reference Whitaker’s Almanack (1868). “Wisden’s in a place where we cherish publications,” says Charkin. “And it makes money, which is its best protection.” There is now an Indian edition and other spin-offs, but still no worthwhile website. And Bloomsbury, as a medium-sized public company, is vulnerable to takeover. Wisden is already at the whim of internal committees full of people who understand the publishing orthodoxies of the moment but not the mysterious nature of Wisden’s success. 150 not out, 2013 Yet I am not sure anyone quite understands it. What I have learnt is that it appeals most to people who love books first, and cricket second, not the other way round. That collectability is crucial.

And that what readers love most is the way, searching for one fact, one gets diverted for hours: it is a reference book double-plus. Plus there is that solid, distinctive name: as Australian writer Murray Hedgcock once pointed out, Wisden would never have worked had the founder been John Smith, Jones or Robinson. And somehow the almanack has just been lucky. For its millennium edition in 2000 I came up with the wheeze of choosing Five Cricketers of the Century to match the five its editor chooses every year. This involved setting up a worldwide electoral college of experts – and much secrecy. The result aroused terrific interest and five truly great names emerged: Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Jack Hobbs, Shane Warne and Sir Vivian Richards. There was, however, a small explosive device lurking in the deep folds of the almanack. This was the Wisden willie. It was the custom, until then, for Wisden to include team pictures of county squads. In the 2000 Leicestershire photo, one of their most obscure players was laughing, having chosen to expose himself to the camera – his only contribution to cricket history.

The Leicestershire squad was large; the page was small; so was our editorial team; and so was the appendage. No one had noticed. Had the furore broken on publication day, it would have destroyed a year’s hard work. As it was, no one else noticed for a week. Then the headlines starting rolling in: “Exposed: the first man out this season”; “Anyone for spotted dick?” And so on. Livid though I was at the time, I now recognise two things: first, that the publicity was yet another sign of Wisden’s special place in the national pantheon; and second, it was all to the good. Had the exposure been exposed a week earlier it would have destroyed the launch. Instead, it was a marketing bonus. And so I have faith that Wisden will continue to survive and thrive, and that in 2063, when I will not expect an invitation to the annual publication day dinner, there will still be cricket worth celebrating, a book to celebrate it and an audience to enjoy reading it.

Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, edited by Lawrence Booth, £50 ‘The Little Wonder: The Remarkable History of Wisden’ by Robert Winder, £25 (Both published April 11, by John Wisden & Co) Sample the FT’s top stories for a week You select the topic, we deliver the news. Select topic Wisden Almanack expresses fears for future of international cricket | Andy Wilson | Sport | The Guardian Wisden Almanack expresses fears for future of international cricket • 'India, your sport needs you' says editor Lawrence Booth • Cook and Chapple among Five Cricketers of the Year Alastair Cook is among Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year.

Photograph: Eranga Jayawardena/AP Wisden Almanack expresses fears for future of international cricket • 'India, your sport needs you' says editor Lawrence Booth • Cook and Chapple among Five Cricketers of the Year Wednesday 11 April 2012 04.00 EDT First published on Wednesday 11 April 2012 04.00 EDT Close This article is 4 years old International cricket "stands at a precipice", according to the 149th edition of Wisden, which is published on Thursday. And only India have the power to pull it back from the brink. That is the implication of remarks made by Lawrence Booth, formerly of the Guardian and now of the Daily Mail, and at 37 the youngest editor of the cricketers' almanack since Haddon Whitaker in 1940. It is the profusion of Twenty20, "a Pandora's box masquerading as a panacea", that leaves the game so precariously placed, Booth writes. "Twenty20 is a vital part of a fragile ecosystem," he says.

"But a playful scrap every few hours can grate, and some administrators appear to be awaiting the second Flood." Citing the "prevalence of the two-match [Test] series", he says that "the administrators' insistence on Test cricket has been stated so often as to have lost any meaning". The decision-makers in South Africa, Australia and England receive a gentle poke for that, but it is India who are held most accountable. "Too often their game appears driven by the self-interest of the few," says Booth, who has seen enough of the Indian Premier League at first hand to speak from authority. "The disintegration of India's feted batting lineup has coincided with the rise of a Twenty20-based nationalism, the growth of private marketeers and high level conflicts of interest. It is a perfect storm. And the global game sits steadily in the eye.

India, your sport needs you." There are also barbs for Essex in particular, and the former players who have "reckoned, now you mentioned it, that they may have taken part in some match or other when someone had done something they really shouldn't have" – although there is more detailed treatment of the spot-fixing scandals that reached their climax in the winter of 2011-12 in a six-page account of the trial of the Pakistan trio Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, plus their agent Mazhar Majeed, by RDJ Edwards, the former crime correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and London's Evening Standard who now works for the Cricketer. This piece is as compelling as it is illuminating, for anyone who had not followed the trial as avidly as Edwards – who attended, blogged and tweeted at every day of the trial. "During breaks, Butt would politely ask reporters for the score from Pakistan's series against Sri Lanka," Edwards writes. "Asif, meanwhile, would take the first opportunity to rush outside for a cigarette, stopping briefly at a drinks stall.

With a wink and a smile he would ask a journalist in the queue (invariably the female Sky Sports News reporter) to buy him a fresh orange juice, and hand over a pound coin; he never did seem to acknowledge the drink cost £1.15." There are equally fascinating, but less easily accessible, views on depression in cricket by the former England captain Mike Brearley, and on the International Cricket Council by Gideon Haigh – which at 7,000 words is the longest in the comment section since the war, at least. Booth's reference to "an uncomfortable feeling that England have prospered despite the domestic system" will ruffle a few feathers among those who have welcomed a new respect for the county game that nurtured the world's No1 Test team. But two of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year are recognised purely for their county contributions: Glen Chapple, who led Lancashire to their first outright Championship title since 1934; and Alan Richardson, the stalwart seamer from Staffordshire whose 73 wickets kept Worcestershire in Division One.

The others are Alastair Cook – who surprisingly had not been recognised before, and therefore completed a full England XI who have made the Five at Abu Dhabi in January (they were all out for 72); Tim Bresnan; and Kumar Sangakkara, who is also named the leading cricketer in the world for the calendar year of 2012. An edited version of his MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture, in which Sangakkara raised the possibility of the ICC suspending his own Sri Lankan board, is also printed in the Almanack. The Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, published by A&C Black, £45 Wisden Almanack | ESPN Cricinfo Wisden Almanack The cover of the 2016 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack © Getty Images Enlarge Nagraj Gollapudi on Pranav Dhanawade's 1009 not out Search the archive Below you can search Wisden's unique cricket archive, which dates back to 1864. Just enter your search term and click 'submit'.

About the archive and Cricketers of the Year index Browse editions Since 2004, each Almanack contains details of all the international cricket played in the previous calendar year - so the 2006-07 Champions Trophy, which took place towards the end of 2006, appears in Wisden 2007. Until 2003 the Almanack covered the cricket played in the previous year's English summer, and the overseas season that preceded it - so, for example, the 2002 Wisden covers the cricket played in England in 2001 and overseas in 2000-01. About the archive Wisden: Wisden Cricketers' Almanack: Wisdens from 1864 onwards: Sportspages.com Wisden Wisden Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is the longest-running, continuously published sporting handbook in the world and a full set is the Holy Grail for cricket collectors. A new edition of Wisden has been published every year since 1864. The first edition was priced at one shilling.

It ran to only 112 pages and was padded out with several items completely unrelated to cricket, including dates of battles in the English Civil War, the winners of The Oaks, and the rules of quoiting! The instantly recognisable woodcut image on the front of many a Wisden Cricketer's Almanack of two Victorian gentlemen playing cricket in top hats was introduced on the front of Wisdens in 1938. The woodcut was made by Eric Ravilious, a well-known artist of the time, who was killed in World War II four years later. The iconic yellow cover was first introduced in the same year, 1938 on the 75th edition. There are many stand-out editions of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, including 1916 and its obituaries of WG Grace and Trumper; 1949, detailing the Australian 'Invincibles' tour under Don Bradman and the 1963 Centenary Edition, which tells the story of how John Wisden started his Almanack.

Other notable editions, include the 1875 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, which is extremely rare and so similarly sought after; and 1896, the year of the first hardback Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. Our range of Wisdens span the rarest Wisden to the most recent paperback edition. If you can't find a specific Wisden, do contact us. We may not have all our Wisdens on the web and we are constantly sourcing more too. 1000+ images about Wisden on Pinterest | Cricket, Cricket bat and Mark davis Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Wisden Welcome to Bloomsbury’s Wisden cricket board. Visit to find out more about the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, first published in 1864. 17 Pins227.33k Followers Wisden Cricketers' Almanack: 150 years of 'cricket's bible' - BBC Sport BBC Sport Wisden Cricketers' Almanack: 150 years of 'cricket's bible' By Sam Sheringham Read more about sharing.

In 1979, Bill Furmedge was a 15-year-old state schoolboy from a Liverpool suburb who had never played cricket or shown any interest in the game. On a trip to his local library, his eye was caught by a weighty tome with a bright yellow cover. The book in question was that year's Wisden Cricketers' Almanack and the chance encounter was to prove the start of a love affair that endures to this day. "I began reading and became engrossed as most Wisden people do by the facts and figures," recalls Furmedge. "I became fascinated by the 1979 edition and ended up going back to the library three or four times. Each individual Wisden is a period drama. It is like stepping into a Tardis and being transported back in time." John Wisden at the end of a long career as professional purveyor of “fast and ripping” off-cutters. Six weeks later, Furmedge bought his first copy of the so-called 'cricket bible' and began to build a collection.

In 2004, his shelves were so cluttered by old editions of the book that a friend suggested he should go into business, buying and selling Wisdens. "Within three months, I'd launched a mini-website. Within six months I was selling on Ebay," adds Furmedge. "It snowballed to the point where in 2008 I was able to leave London, where I was earning good money in a wonderful career as a publisher, and set up full-time. "I've been told I'm the largest Wisden-only dealer in the UK and probably the world." According to Furmedge, who sells between 150 and 200 Wisdens every month, rare early editions can sell for as much as £35,000, while a complete set of originals needs to be insured for about £350,000. That a man can make a good living dealing in dusty old copies of a cricketing annual underlines the deep affection for a publication which bills itself as the world's most famous sports book and will publish its 150th edition next week.

Released each year in April, Wisden traditionally includes scorecards and synopses of every first-class game played in England the previous summer as well as summaries of international, minor counties, second XI, university, school and club cricket. A typical copy would also include several pages of articles and features about topical issues in cricket, profiles of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year, obituaries, records, rules and an Index of Unusual Occurrences bearing headlines such as "Rabbit burns down pavilion", "Hot-air balloons stop play" or "Cricketers arrested for dancing naked". Lawrence Booth, who became Wisden's youngest editor for 72 years at the age of 35 in 2011, describes the book as the "conscience of cricket".

Wisden timeline 1864:Wisden publishes first Cricketers' Almanack 1889:Wisden selects its first Cricketers of the Year 1901: Editor Sydney Pardon starts 'Notes by the Editor' 1916:Wisden features obituaries of WG Grace and Victor Trumper 1944:Wisden's factory in Mortlake, southwest London, destroyed by a bomb 1963: The 100th edition of Wisden is marked by introduction of the Wisden Trophy to be contested between England & West Indies 1979: The magazine Wisden Cricket Monthly is launched 2000: Wisden names its Five Cricketers of the Century 2009: Claire Taylor is the first woman to be named as a Cricketer of the Year 2013:Wisden publishes 150th edition "As annuals should do it steps back and takes a more distant perspective than daily reporters are able to do. It tries to keep the game in check," he says. "The readership is highly educated in cricket terms and they are looking for something warm, informative and affectionate.

"But it's a social history as well. If you leaf through the pages of Wisden over the years you get a sense of the country and its politics." Leafing through the first ever Wisden - from 1864 - leaves little more than a sense of bemusement. The book was the brainchild of John Wisden, a star cricketer from the mid-1800s, who was trying to secure an income in his retirement. Priced at one shilling, the 112-page volume provided details of the Gentlemen v Players fixtures of the preceding season as well as a diverse mix of facts, including the lengths of Britain's canals, the dates of the Wars of the Roses and the rules of an obscure pub game called Knur and Spell. "It was an extraordinary pot pourri of stuff," says former Wisden managing director Chris Lane. "Nobody knows why. The next year it immediately became all about cricket and gradually started to evolve into what we know today." Various landmarks have punctuated that evolution. The 1889 edition was the first to name its Cricketers of the Year, which has become one of the sport's most prestigious annual awards.

It recognises the top performers of the previous English season and cannot be won by the same player twice. In 1901, the Notes by the Editor section was introduced, allowing then editor Sydney Pardon to rail against "throwing and dubious bowling" as well as "the treatment of the Press representatives at Lord's on the occasion of the Oxford and Cambridge, and Eton and Harrow matches." West Indies captain Chris Gayle holds the Wisden trophy aloft after a series victory over England in 2009 The 1916 edition carried a more sombre tone, reflecting the mood of wartime Britain and the death of two of the game's greats, WG Grace and Victor Trumper, whose obituaries are contained in its pages. The iconic yellow cover made its debut on the 1938 book, which was also the first to feature the woodcut image of two Victorian gentlemen playing cricket by artist Eric Ravilious, which has become the book's emblem and sits proudly on the commemorative cover of the 150th edition.

In 1963, the 100th Wisden was marked by the introduction of the Wisden Trophy to be contested between England and West Indies and in 2000, Wisden initiated the ultimate cricketing debate by naming Sir Don Bradman, Sir Jack Hobbs, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Viv Richards and Shane Warne as its five Cricketers of the Century. Today, Wisden sells around 40,000 copies at a cover price of £50. It regularly exceeds 1,500 pages, with the 5,000-word Notes by the Editor now a highly-respected reflection on the state of the game. "I think it's fair to say that it's the one piece of cricket writing I do that I know will get picked up," says Daily Mail cricket writer Booth, who used his first essay last year to implore Indian cricket administrators to put aside their own self-interest by helping protect Test cricket against the indomitable rise of Twenty20. "No administrator wants to be flayed in the editors' notes. I know from experience that people will read it, take offence occasionally and object to things.

They know what is written there will stand the test of time. It's not fish and chip paper. As editor you have a huge responsibility to get things right." Booth also tells a tale that reflects Wisden's standing among players. When veteran Worcestershire seamer Alan Richardson was named one of the Cricketers of the Year in 2012 he turned up at the awards dinner - a black-tie affair held annually in the iconic Long Room at Lord's - "looking starstruck" and even sent Booth a 'thank you' card the following week. Wisden - the player's view "I have the Wisden from every year of my career from 1982 and 2006 on my bookshelves at home and on a rainy day, I will sometimes look back on a certain chapter of my career and remind myself what was going on in the cricketing world at the time.

"It was an honour to be named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1993 because you feel like you are being recognised by one of the game's great institutions." Exactly 150 guests have been invited to this year's dinner, forming part of a series of events to celebrate the book's landmark birthday. The centrepiece will be a cricket match between an Authors' XI and a Wisden XI, who will wear full Victorian cricketing regalia. The game will be played in London's Vincent Square, where John Wisden produced one of his finest displays. It is an appropriately nostalgic celebration for an institution proud of its ongoing role in chronicling the history of the game and checking its pulse. Looking to the future, however, does Booth see a danger of Wisden's importance starting to diminish in an era of social media and instant news? "In an age of tweeting and blogging, which are both important nowadays, we try to make a virtue of the fact that we can step back and take a considered view," says Booth. "The fact that people still buy Wisden suggests there is still an affection for that approach.

Until people stop buying it we will carry on doing it." Bloomsbury - Wisden Wisden Wisden Wisden Wisden Cricketers' Almanack has been published every year since 1864. Wisden 2013 -the 150th edition- contains coverage of all first class cricket around the world in the past year. The Wisden Sports Writing series started life in 2011 and brings the tradition of Wisden into areas the Almanack has never reached, combining the best name in sport with the best sports writing.

Visit the wisden site for more information Hedley Verity and the Story of Cricket’s Greatest Bowling Feat By : Hedley Verity and the Story of Cricket’s Greatest Bowling Feat By : Wisden opens fire on ECB for Kevin Pietersen saga and England’s poor form | Sport | The Guardian Wisden opens fire on ECB for Kevin Pietersen saga and England’s poor form • ECB ‘lost touch with basic idea that national team belongs to all’ • Wisden’s editor also questions timing of Cook’s removal as one-day captain Wednesday 8 April 2015 04.03 EDT First published on Wednesday 8 April 2015 03.30 EDT Share on Messenger Close The England and Wales Cricket Board has found itself in the crosshairs of the 2015 edition of Wisden following a year in which results dwindled and the governing body “repeatedly lost touch with the basic idea that the national team belongs to us all”.

The 152nd edition of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, the primrose-coloured annual that has long-been considered the touchstone of the sport, holds the governing body to account for its controversial handling of the decision to cut ties with Kevin Pietersen last February, Alastair Cook’s removal as one-day captain on the eve of the World Cup, a decline in Test match attendances and recreational participation,and a “head-in-the-sand” approach to the one-day format. Its editor, Lawrence Booth, examines a “nexus of self-preservation” among the ECB’s cricketing hierarchy at a time when results for the men’s side have been desperate, with eight series defeats out of 11 across the three formats in 2014. Wisden notes that, of the top-eight nations in the world, only the ‘dysfunctional’ Pakistan side in 2010 suffered more defeats than England’s 28 in a calendar year. Wisden includes Moeen Ali and Gary Ballance in its cricketers of the year Read more On the failure to properly explain the cancellation of Pietersen’s central contract, Booth writes: “[England] botched the PR battle.

They hinted that some darker truth about his behaviour would emerge once a confidentiality agreement expired in October. Yet the lull merely prolonged the fiasco.And, when the dirt failed to materialise, the ECB looked rudderless; worse, in the eyes of those agitating for an explanation, they looked indifferent. “It was typical of a story beyond the ECB’s control that their best moment was not of their own making. Having searched in vain for the words that justified his sacking, they were gifted a 324-page solution: an autobiography so full of rancour that the BBC chat-show host Graham Norton suggested to Pietersen: ‘Maybe, just maybe, team sport’s not for you …’ “Thereafter, the ECB simply had to sit back and watch him display the lack of self-awareness that had contributed to his downfall in the first place … All the while, he kept insisting how happy he was in the land of Twenty20 franchises – and agitating for an international recall.

The whole thing would have been sad if it hadn’t been so absurd.” Wisden notes that results on the pitchmade matters worse and that those accountable at the ECB offices at Lord’s remained in the cosiest of alliances during the final year of Giles Clarke’s chairmanship. “National selector James Whitaker had called Cook ‘our exceptional leader’; Paul Downton, the ECB’s new managing director, hailed [Peter] Moores as the ‘outstanding coach of his generation’; chairman Giles Clarke trumpeted Downton as a ‘man of great judgment’. It was a nexus of self-preservation – yet, as the wagons circled, the wheels kept threatening to come off.” Wisden added: “To leave the sacking of Cook so late made little sense. Had he stepped down in August after the 3–1 Test win over India, he could have done so with his post-Ashes reputation partly restored. Trouble was, Cook had become more than just a cricketer: cast by his employers in the role of latter-day saint to Pietersen’s fallen angel, he was now an article of faith.

“Clarke even suggested the Cooks were ‘very much the sort of people we want the England captain and his family to be’, which was all well and good but couldn’t stop him edging behind. Downton, Whitaker and Moores were all bound up with his fate: Cook had to succeed, as much for others as for himself. It was an intolerable position.” The notes go on to lament the ascension of Indian cricket and the cement magnate Narayanaswami Srinivasan to the position of chairman at the International Cricket Council, highlight cricket’s move to the peripheries of the national sporting conversation in England and call on the ECB to redouble its efforts in engaging with the country’s south Asian population.On a more positive note for English cricket, the international pair of Moeen Ali and Gary Ballance have been named among Wisden’s five cricketers of the year while Australia’s captain Meg Lanning has become the inaugural winner of its leading woman cricketer in the world award.

Ballance’s county team-mate Adam Lyth is also among the five along with the Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews, whose side won four series against England in 2014, and Warwickshire’s New Zealand off-spinner Jeetan Patel, the leading wicket-taker in domestic cricket last summer. The Sri Lanka batsman Kumar Sangakkara was named as the leading men’s cricketer in the world with Wisden also issuing its equivalent in the women’s game for the first time in the annual’s 152nd edition.

Question: The ‘Wisden Almanack’ relates to which sport?
Answer: Cricket