Wisden goes back to The Sixties

 posted by John Winn

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2021, the 158th issue of the publication, landed in my porch yesterday and like so many facets of life it has been affected by the pandemic. Not surprisingly it is significantly smaller than in recent years and in terms of the space it takes up on my shelves it compares closely with its ancestors from the 1960s. In his preface editor Lawrence Booth remarks that 'this year's almanack is about 20% slimmer than its recent predecessors' but 'longer than any edition before 1980.' If we measure by number of pages then this is clearly the case. Nestling side by side with 1965 the two volumes appear very similar in size but 2021 can boast 1248 pages while 1965 ran to only 1043. Size aside Booth and his team have done a marvellous job in very difficult circumstances and it maybe that the 2021 edition will become something of a collector's item, let's hope that in 2022 we will be back to normal.

 One silver cloud is that Booth appears to have found room for more obituaries and West Yorkshire readers of the almanack might like to turn page 239 where they will find four lines on Huddersfield legend Peter Dibb. Another unlikely recipient of this honour is Margaret Borthwick, famous for being Scott  Borthwick's grandmother but more importantly for feeding generations of cricketers. How appropriate that her grandson should score a hundred on the day Margaret's obituary was published. 

Following Tony's posting on Monday and the statement by GMCL that they will not adhere to the ECB's request that play in tomorrow's league matches should be suspended for an hour but that they will observe a two minute silence in memory of Prince Philip I have looked at a number of other leagues' websites for their reaction to the request. The Bradford, Huddersfield, Pontefract, Aire Wharfe and Halifax leagues have all taken the same stance as GMCL. Inspection of at least six other websites reveals no other reference to the issue at all although something may be published before tomorrow.