People have been dreaming about reviving American cricket ever since it died during the Civil War

People have been dreaming about reviving American cricket ever since it died during the Civil War, 160 years ago. It was killed by a shortage of pitches, kit and coaching, and by the rise of baseball, the great American pastime. Baseball had two advantages. It was easier to play - all you needed was a bat, a ball, four bases and a field - and if you were good at it, you could make a lot more money. Plenty of professional crickets made the switch.

A. Bull, 'Cricket in the USA: the American dream', in L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2025), 122

From the age of 30, he took 436 Test wickets at 24

Even accounting for that series [2023Ashes], Anderson had grown old with astonishing grace  From the age of 30, he took 436 Test wickets at 24 - a total surpassed by only nine others in their entire career. From 35, he took 224 at 22, the bowling equivalent of Jack Hobbs's 100 first class hundreds after the age of 40. And since turning 40 himself, Anderson took 47 at 27.

L. Booth, 'Notes from the Editor', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2025), 18

Alexander the Great needed four months to capture Multan in 325 BCE ... It took Ben Stokes three and a half days

Alexander the Great needed four months to capture Multan in 325 BCE, and was hit by an arrow that nearly killed him. It took Ben Stokes three and a half days, despite a touch of flu. By presiding over victory in perhaps the region's most ancient city, he achieved what no cricketing general from English shores ever had - a second successive Test win in Pakistan, and the chance of a whitewash. 

D. Wilson, 'Pakistan v England: second test', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2023), 411

Mostly, though, I think it's because Ukraine is always interested in ideas that help it to identify with cultures that aren't Russian

Cricket's popularity spread to schools across the country until, by the end of the 2010s, it was a staple of many PE classes. Why does Hardeep think it struck such a chord? "In part, it's because cricket is a sport that can be played by boys and girls together up to a certain age. In part it's because you can play it on a football pitch. Mostly, though, I think it's because Ukraine is always interested in ideas that help it to identify with cultures that aren't Russian. Cricket helps connect Ukraine to India, Pakistan, Australia, England..."

A. Preston, 'Anything but Russia', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2023), 49

Popular imagination likes its fast bowlers to be ale swilling extroverts

Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards and John Augustine Snow, poet, thinker, introvert would surely be one of the last to disagree with the Old Arab proverb. Assaulted on the boundary edge of a great Test arena, dropped by his county for lack of effort, stood in a corner by England's selectors for barging over an Indian Test batsman at Lord's and while all this was swirling around him, writing and getting published a volume of poems -- controversy, thy name was Snow, in the early 1970's. Popular imagination likes its fast bowlers to be ale swilling extroverts, but this enigmatic cricketer refuses to be typed ... reading, music, painting, poetry are as necessary to him as food and fresh air ... He owes his inclusion in one of the most coveted sections of this Almanack to none of these things. He is here on naked merit, which first played a major part in bringing The Ashes back home to England after an absence of twelve years and then helped keep them here last summer. A haul of 55 wickets in two series against Australia is his passport to cricket immortality. 

B. Easterbrook, 'FIFTY YEARS AGO: John Snow', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2022), 1483

Looking up the original 1973 Cricketers of the year text, I discover this also brilliant anecdote: At the England team's Harrogate hotel during the fourth Test at Leeds last July, Basil d'Oliveira in an animated dinner table conversation said to him "The ultimate thing in life is to play for England." Snow replied quietly "The ultimate thing in life is death."

There's a woman in there!

Change hurts. The Daily Telegraph's E.W. "Jim" Swanton once burst out of the committee room here at Lord's, exclaiming in a hoarse and outraged whisper, "There's a woman in there!" "Yes, Jim, of course there is," it was the explained. "It's the Saturday of the Ashes Test. It's the Queen." Jim absorbed this for a second, before coming back with "Nevertheless..."

S. Fry, 'MCC Cowdrey lecture',  L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2022), 124

Asked to name the current players he admired, he replied: "None."

Where the dreamy Dexter enjoyed flights of fancy, Ray Illingworth was the canny Yorkshireman. Asked by The Cricketer around the time of his appointment to name the current players he admired, he replied: "None." Nothing during his reign [as chair of selectors] suggested a change of heart.

R. Hobson, 'A history of selection', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2022), 95

A job at the Sudan Civil Service, for instance, required either a first-class degree, or a Blue plus a second

Wisden had been among the first to question the true merit of university cricket, removing its traditional list of Oxbridge blues in 1993. Matthew Engel, the editor, was widely condemned; one critic observed he was a "political scientist from Manchester University". But Engel, with some justification, felt the roll call had become the "biggest anachronism in the book". He added: "even the Oxford Mail and Cambridge Evening News stopped sending reporters."

A Blue had once denoted more than a first-class career: it opened doors. A job at the Sudan Civil Service, for instance, required either a first-class degree, or a Blue plus a second - which is how Guy Pawson, Oxford's captain in 1910, got in.

D. Pringle,' 'The end of first-class university cricket', L.Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2021), 116

One felt that somehow it would take more than totalitarian war to put an end to cricket

[H.S. Altham, in 1940] ends by describing a visit to Lord's, sandbags everywhere, the Long Room stripped bare. And yet: "The turf was a wondrous green, old Time on the Grand Stand was gazing serenely at the nearest balloon, and one felt that somehow it would take more than totalitarian war to put an end to cricket."

Since all Wisden  readers obviously enjoyed a classical education, he concluded with a line - in Latin only - from Horace, the poet who had also written the dulce et decorum est mantra that inspired the Great War generals. Altham's choice was more positive: Merses profundo, pulchrior evenit (You may drown in the depths, but it rises the more glorious). So it was for cricket in1940, so it will be 80 years later.

P. Kidd, 'When the cricket stops', L.Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2021), 46-47

Unfit in cricketing ability so much as to tie up Boycott's bootlaces

Yorkshire were involved in another of those internal disputes which have been so much a part of their recent history. A clash between Ray Illingworth, manager of the Yorkshire team, and Geoff Boycott, hallowed by many of his fellow Yorkshiremen, revealed Headingley as a hotbed of dissension, with sides being manifestly taken. It seems an absurdity when young members of the Yorkshire team, unfit in cricketing ability so much as to tie up Boycott's bootlaces, were asked to vote on whether or not they wanted to play with him any more

J. Woodcock, 'Notes by the editor', id. (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1982), 90

And there was Warne, bowling beautifully with a method thought to have been relegated to the museum

Shortly after lunch on the first day the Edgbaston Test in 1993, Shane Warne was bowing leg-breaks to Alec Stewart, who had momentarily discarded both his helmet and his faded baseball cap in favour of a real, old-fashioned, three lions of England version. As he pushed forward he looked the image of his father at the crease. behind the stumps, there was Ian Healy wearing his baggy cap and air of ageless Australian aggression. And there was Warne, bowling beautifully with a method thought to have been relegated to the museum.

M. Engel, 'Notes by the editor', id. (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (1994), 9

A relationship which was at odds long before women were given the vote

Cricket and family life have never been easy bedfellows. A relationship which was at odds long before women were given the vote appears to have reached a crisis of late ... The leading players are finding that cricket is making greater demands on them than ever before - and so are their wives.

D. Pringle, 'Don't marry a cricketer', T. de Lisle (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2003), 37

An arcane world - a world of averages, aggregates and algorithms - suddenly became accessible

When Romeo laid eyes on Juliet he gushed: "I ne'er saw true beauty till this night." A million cricket nuts felt much the same way the first time they logged on to StatsGuru on CricInfo. Hearts skipped. Pulses danced. Minds boggled. An arcane world  - a world of averages, aggregates and algorithms - suddenly became accessible. The impossible was possible.

C. Ryan, 'No anorak required', T. de Lisle (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2003), 60

The only surprise about his two centuries on a farewell first-class trip to Lord's was that he needed a bridge to cross the river

It was Sangakkara, though, who spectators came to watch, and the authority and precision of his strokeplay were much admired, not least by fellow players. The only surprise about his two centuries on a farewell first-class trip to Lord's was that he needed a bridge to cross the river.

R. Spiller, 'Surrey', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2018), 587

Never mind 2015: this could have been 1895

You might describe it as a series of its time - cricket for the attention-deprived, 140-character age. And yet there was something queerly retro about it all. Three-day tests? Pitifully low totals? England v Australia playing each other every few months to the exclusion of almost anything else? Never mind 2015: this could have been 1895.

J. Liew, 'England v Australia in 2015', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2016), 334

This was a duty, an obligation, the right thing to do.

Perhaps nothing summed him up better than the last of the several pieces he wrote for Wisden: a tribute to his friend and hero Keith Miller in 2005. the editor muttered apologetically about the feebleness of the fee.  No, he said, he didn't want a fee. This was a duty, an obligation, the right thing to do.

'Obituaries: Benaud, Richard', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2016), 195

I am a sucker for these moments. For a variety of reasons, there are lots in Wisden 2016. I liked this one best.

This was touching, but not a policy found in most textbooks on sporting governance

Tendulkar's 200th test should have been in Cape Town, but politics and money put paid to that: the BCCI wanted to bloody the nose of CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat, and there were broadcasters to sate. Besides, Tino Best and Darren Sammy were less likely than Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel to embarrass an ageing superstar. Most conveniently, perhaps, the setting allowed Tendulkar's mother to watch him play for the first time. This was touching, but not a policy found in most textbooks on sporting governance.

L. Booth, 'Notes by the Editor', id. (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2014), 22

And then the batting, and batting, and more beautiful batting

The rest is an Indian fairytale: Laxman the last man out in the first innings for a dashing 59, asked to keep his pads on by his captain and the coach, swapping positions with a struggling Dravid in the follow-on, the two coming together in the second innings with Laxman almost upon his century but India still behind Australia’s first-innings total.

And then the batting, and batting, and more beautiful batting, over a short evening, the whole of March 14, and then some more. Laxman curling the ball through imperceptible gaps, Dravid regaining lost form through pure unblinking will, Laxman now flick-pulling the fast bowlers as if tossing frisbees, now driving them on the rise, sinuous jabs that raced improbably across the big green outfield, Dravid now blocking, now shouldering arms, now leaning back to cut, the old sureness slowly redeveloping, Laxman inside-outing Warne miraculously from far outside leg stump, now whipping him against the turn, Dravid, fully restored, emboldened to come down the track himself and wrist Warne across his break, all of this in the huge sound and growing belief of a hundred thousand in Eden Gardens, an energy that must be experienced to be understood.

R. Bhattacharya, 'Two southern gentlemen', L. Booth, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2013), 131-2

Once upon a time, Amla would have been the player required to leave his homeland

Once upon a time, Amla would have been the player required to leave his homeland to realise his potential and live out his dreams. It would have been the destiny of Pietersen, with his expensive Pietermaritzburg education and his apparently inviolable sense of self-certainty, to wear the national cap

B. Carpenter, 'South African Time', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' (2013), 116

Some see it as a place for people who are still coming to terms with the death of Edward VII

Canterbury divides opinion. Some see it as a place for people who are still coming to terms with the death of Edward VII:  a theme park for vaguely distracted gentlefolk, who find the sport engaging but would really rather be pacifying the North West frontier or civilising the dusty outback

P. Collins, 'Canterbury week: Fascinating! It's Ladies' Day', S. Berry (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2011), 70

I really, really, want to go to watch Kent play.