Wisden Anthology 1978 - 2006

- Review

John Wisden & Co Ltd ISBN 1905625006 (November, 2006) Buy It Now

1056 pages long, the fifth Anthology from Wisden brings cricket bang up to date covering the last 30 years beginning in 1978 and concluding this publication in 2006. This edition covers arguably some of the greats in cricketing history, certainly the modern era and include the likes of Viv Richards, Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Steve Waugh, Brian Lara and Shane Warne.

In the early 1980s "Wisden" published four anthologies that celebrated the best of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack stretching back to its first edition in 1864. Edited by the respected jazz musician, raconteur and cricket-lover, Benny Green, these volumes proved very popular.

Stephen Moss reviews this edition and paints a picture of cricket's evolution over the past 30 years. It begins in 1978, Test cricket's centenary, when England regained the Ashes, Geoffrey Boycott scored his hundredth hundred, Ian Botham took five for 74 on debut, and Kerry Packer's millions ensured the era of deferential players earning a pittance was over for good. Thirty Years on for better or worse, cricket has changed radically. Buy It Now

Over 40,000 pages have been produced over the last 30 years in Wisden publications and Stephen Moss has distilled the thousands of pages into a 720 page anthology. Matches have been selected, players and events included, coloured uniforms and one day cricket as well as major controversies that have ushered the game into the modern era, unrecognisable from the 50's and 60's cricket.

The quality is what you come to expect from Wisden and the anthology is a remarkable collection of days gone by. The book is split into seven sections namely The Revolution, Test playing Countries, Players, World Cup, Counties, The Bigger picture and Farewells. Although the Anthology dates from 1978 it was deemed essential that to build the foundation for this book, articles from '76 and '77 were included.

The Revolution, as the title suggests guides us through the initial changes before heading permanently into the modern era. Life before and after Kerry Packer, a tribute to Neville Cardus, arguably the greatest cricket writer ever to have scribed, television and coloured uniforms. There is of course so much more but this gives you an idea of what is included. Sir Neville Carduss died in February 1975 and in the 1976 Wisden Alan Gison wrote a terrific tribute to the great writer.

Considering we now have the Barmy Army and Fanatics, England and Australia's travelling fan base, long gone are the days when the cricket fan would applaud a good shot or wicket and then settle down in between deliveries. In the 1977 edition a rather comical entry was included “TCCB Summer Meeting – Crowd Noise Intimidatory”. In it the TCCB discussed the noise level at the Test venues, noise that was considered irritating and sometime intimidatory to players and umpires. West Indies players were among those who found it disconcerting and Clive Lloyd, their captain, was to be asked to co-operate in appealing for relative quiet at the last Test at the Oval.

Also included are select matches from Australia including the centenary match again England in 1977 and Australia's destruction of the West Indies in 1996 that included the home sides first three day loss in 30 years. The series win marked the changing of the guard and how Australia were finally recognised as World Champions with the victory of the Windies, their first home defeat for 15 years. Despite Mark Taylor's poor form they completely outclassed the Caribbean side. Australia were led by four all time greats namely Border, Taylor, Waugh and now Ponting.

All sections include articles from some of the best cricket writers of the past 30 years as you would expect from Wisden. The players section includes a wonderful array of cricketers to have graced the fields of glory. Divided into sub categories we find articles on Javed Miandad, Ricky Ponting, Gooch and Darren Gough.

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