da bet7： Michael Billngton reviews the 2006 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
da pinnacle： Michael Billington15-Apr-2006
“O, call back yesterday, bid time return.” So says a character in Shakespeare’s Richard II, implying it is a vain impossibility. But Shakespeare, sadly, did not have access to Wisden. And what is great and glorious about this year’s Almanack is that it enables one to call back yesterday and relive every moment of last year’s golden Ashes summer. Shedding allequivocations, editor Matthew Engel says: “This was The Greatest. The 2005 Ashes series surpassed every previous series in cricket history on just about any indicator you choose.” And who would argue with that?While fulfilling its obligationsto world cricket, the euphoric143rd Wisden is inevitablydominated by the Ashes. AndrewFlintoff beats Shane Wane by aclose-shaven head to the annualtitle of Leading Cricketer in theWorld. And the excellent essayson the Five Cricketers of theYear – Matthew Hoggard, SimonJones, Brett Lee, Kevin Pietersenand Ricky Ponting – all shedretrospective light on the Ashesseries. David Hopps remindsus that Hoggard by the end ofsummer had the best strike-rate ofall of the world’s top Test bowlersin 2005: one wicket every 38 balls.Paul Hayward, having dubbedPietersen “cricket’s first rock-star”,also implies that the natural, freeflowingtalent that produced 473runs in five Tests finally mattersfar more than the skunk hairdoand the celebrity dating.But what makes this a Wisdento treasure is that England’sAshes triumph is viewed from somany varied perspectives. SimonHughes, freed from the Danteesquegloom of the Channel 4van, offers 10 cogent reasonswhy England won. Intriguingly,he gives most space to Vaughan’sproactive, as against RickyPonting’s inactive, captaincy:as one of the lucky ones presenton that Trent Bridge Sunday,I was astonished at the way itwas Warne rather than Pontingwho dictated the tempo, geed upfellow-players and even seemedto take responsibility for field placings.Every single writer, however,sheds light on the Ashes serieswhether from a cricketing,social or economic viewpoint.Scyld Berry rightly points to thefearlessness of the England side,arguing that, “if they had not beenso young, fresh and unscathed,England would not have crossedNiagara without looking down”.Quentin Letts wittily recordsthe British media’s overnightcricketing frenzy while MalcolmKnox poignantly reminds us thatKerry Packer’s Nine Network optedout of showing the series andthat it took until September 10for the Oz press to work out theintricacies of reverse swing; andthat was some time before theplayers.But perhaps the mostsignificant article is RolandWatson’s on the economic impactof the series: cricket equipmentsales went through the roof withWoodworm alone selling 20,000bats in the post-September ecstasy.Out of the Ashes cricket-fever roselike a phoenix – which remindsme that Lawrence Booth has a veryfunny piece on the pervasivenessof cricketing clichés.Of course, there is more toany Wisden than a single series.And Engel has done a superb jobin reflecting cricket’s multiplefacets. Gideon Haigh – who winsthe Wisden Book of the YearAward for his Ashes 2005 – has afascinating piece on the rise ofthe coach from Bob Simpson toDuncan Fletcher, suggesting it hasbeen driven by a mixture of teamfailure and TV analysis. OsmanSamiuddin illuminatingly showshow a shared Muslim faith, evenmore than the presence of BobWoolmer, has helped to unite a habitually fractious Pakistanside. And the inter-penetration ofcricket and religion is exploredin a particularly fine obituary ofDavid Sheppard (why cannot thelonger obits be signed?) whichrecords how in 1954 the thenArchbishop of Canterbury urgedhim to defer ordination to bring”moral decisiveness” back intoEnglish cricket.Any niggles? Only one actually.In his characteristically incisiveEditor’s Notes (full of exhilaratingICC-bashing), Engel continues hisassault on the divided aims ofcounty cricket which last year hedubbed “increasingly unwatchableand pointless”. Much may bewrong with the structure ofcounty cricket where, as StephenFay points out, power is graduallypassing from members andelected committees to executivemanagers. But the Almanack’sown county reports highlightpeople like Alastair Cook, OwaisShah and Monty Panesar who thiswinter all graduated smoothly,even brilliantly, to the nationalside. And Robin Martin-Jenkinshas a thoughtful, back-of-the-bookpiece knocking on the head SteveRixon’s warped vision of muchcounty cricket as a “cesspool ofmediocrity”. As England’s recentresults show, it is more talent poolthan cesspool.But one last hurrah. Wisden thisyear appears in both its traditional,chunky, door-stopper size and anew large-format, special edition.The former remains portable,indispensable and ideal forstuffing in the brief-case. But, forreading at home, the large-formatedition is a godsend. I found Icould balance it on my kneesand my desk without breakingeither and I pray that a one-offexperiment becomes a permanentfeature. The new Wisden is notonly, for its celebratory analysisof the Ashes series, one of the bestever. It is also, in its alternativeformat, revolutionary in its easyreadability.Buy it now from Cricshop