Absolutely Plumb: Wisden and Other Stories
Created | Updated May 17, 2007
Wisden and Other Stories
I think the biggest advantage of having a birthday in early May is that the cricket season has just got underway. I'm one of these people who is quite easy to buy for if one is blessed with a lack of imagination. I have very little that I actually want for my birthday or Christmases, but most people who know me — even through h2g2 — will be able to think of a few things I like and be able to buy something that I'll love. My tastes are fairly simple: wildlife, alcohol and cricket. So at Christmas I generally end up with a bit of outdoor clothing, a headtorch, a couple of bottles of wine and a bit of money to spend. For my birthdays, the cricket season has begun and cricket is rapidly becoming the family's gift-buying banker.
It started a few years ago, when Dickie Bird was promoting a book, White Cap and Bails, by doing a signing in town. My partner thought it would be a terrific idea to get one signed for me, which it was. The scrawl on the inside cover reads 'To Rich, Keep up the good work with the Sherpas1, Best Wishes, Dickie Bird'. The book itself is a slightly old-fashioned and pleasant, if unexciting, read; as Bird's second autobiographical collection of stories from his life as an umpire, it contains all the stories that weren't quite good enough for his first book. Still, everyone loved old Dickie, and the dedication made it a fantastic present.
My family have clearly been taking notes. In the intervening years, my proportion of cricket-related presents increased slowly but surely. One Christmas, which feels an incredibly long way away now, I got two copies of the same book celebrating England's 2005 Ashes victory. This year, I got a compendium of five cricket books, a new bat and cover, a cricket shirt, a cake made magnificently into the shape of a bat and a Wisden.
You may not know what a Wisden is, in which case I'll try to explain somewhat inadequately what kind of a book this is. In fact, to describe it simply as a book understresses the point. First published in 1864 — the first edition is now valued at £20,000, rather than its one-shilling cover price — it is an annual almanac of cricket, its small typefaced pages bursting with facts, statistics and essays from the year. Its articles are written by the best commentators in the game and it is a treasure trove of statistics. I can see that Derbyshire's Travis Birt became only the fifth player in history to fall a run short of his century on his County Championship debut against Surrey last year. If I want to know more, I can read that one of his sixes ended up in a nearby school playground and almost knocked a passing cyclist off his bike. I can even see that this was the 2,000th first-class match at the Oval and that the match ended in a draw after Surrey were asked to follow on against Derbyshire for the first time in 17 years. Useless trivia? Perhaps. But to a fan, the treats hiding in the match reports are like gems waiting to be uncovered. The little yellow book has become indispensable reading, and I'm hooked.
Most cricket books are autobiographical, and most are ghost-written. Some are terrible. Often it is the biggest names that disappoint the most. Ian Botham's books, for example, are almost unreadable, while Boycott's gruff complaints about how badly he was treated are hilarious for all the wrong reasons. But there are great books out there. Worthy of note is Mike Brearley's Art of Captaincy, a remarkably self-critical book full of insight and far more interesting and useful than any executive handbook. It is a book for life, not just for cricket. For dry observation and a quick wit, Fred Truman's memoir As It Was is unbeatable. In these days where any halfwit sportsman can make millions in a book deal by being 21 and briefly adored by a few thousand people, Fiery Fred's book is a pure beacon of joy.
But for anyone with a passing interest in cricket, the yellow Bible reigns supreme. My birthday copy of the 2007 edition contains the most wonderful passage, written by Michael Parkinson about two of the great characters I've mentioned above:
[Fred Truman] hit Dickie [Bird] under the heart midway through the first over, and a terrible moaning ensued. We gathered around the victim to check which parts might be damaged or missing. As we did so, I looked back to see the bowler [Truman] squatting at the end of his follow-through, thoughtfully chewing a blade of grass. When eventually we had restored Dickie, I walked back past Fred.
"How's thi' mate" he asked.
"He's on his hind legs, Mr Truman. He'll live," I said, with a fawning jocularity.
"That's all right, then," said Fred, and then, almost as an afterthought, added: "But think on, you're next."
I'm rather glad I'm so easy to buy for. There is little I can imagine that would make a greater gift to welcome the new season with than the latest edition of this wonderful book.
