Hayter: Wisden keeps moving with the times
For those still unaware of, or who have made it their business to ignore, the reality that tumultuous change is taking place in English cricket, incontrovertible proof has arrived in the shape of the front cover of the 2017 Wisden Almanack.
It was bad enough for some when, in 2003, the-then editor Tim de Lisle replaced the image of the ‘two top-hatted gents’ by Eric Ravilious that had welcomed readers every year since 1938 with a shot of England batsman Michael Vaughan’s fist-pumping celebration of one of the six Test centuries he scored the previous year.
If that was considered close to sacrilege by traditionalists, only an HE Bateman cartoon could have done justice to the scene in White’s of St. James’ yesterday when its members took in the enormity of what the present guardian of the cricketers’ bible had come up with this time.
For there, in black and primrose, editor Lawrence Booth has selected a photograph depicting a shot that has never, nor, according to sources at Lord’s, will ever appear in the MCC Coaching Manual, namely India’s Virat Kohli playing the reverse-sweep, or switch-hit.
As recently as 1987 this stroke was identified as the instrument of the devil by no less an authority than Peter May, thought by many England’s greatest batsman of the post WW2 period and, at the time, their chairman of selectors.
Thirty years ago this November, England were on course for victory in the World Cup final against Australia at Eden Gardens.
At 135-2 after 31 overs, chasing 254, with their captain Mike Gatting leading his side to a comfortable win, there occurred what turned out to be, arguably, the pivotal event in England’s entire ODI history.
Everyone alive that day remembers where they were and what they were doing when it did.
Running out of options, Aussie skipper Allan Border brought himself on to offer his left-arm rollers, Gatting’s eyes lit up like he was being bowled a cheese and pickle sandwich and his attempt at a reverse sweep went from glove to shoulder to the mitts of wicketkeeper Greg Dyer.
In the aftermath of defeat, May, the full weight of a nation’s indignation behind him, acted swiftly to outlaw the shot’s use among his players, under any circumstance whatsoever, saying he had thumbed through the MCC manual and been unable to find it anywhere.
Wisden itself made its position perfectly clear. Scyld Berry, who also later became its editor, described Gatting’s brain fade as “a moment too crass to contemplate”, adding: “The Australians’ joy was unconcealed.”
The response of the cricketing gods will not have escaped anyone’s attention. Three long decades on, England’s supporters are still waiting, longing, for their side to win a 50over World Cup for the first time ever and they will have to carry on doing so until 2019 for the next opportunity to experience the crushing disappointment they have came to know so well.
By the last time of going to print, in 1994, MCC had still not been able to bring itself to include the shot in their publication and a spokesman at Lord’s yesterday confirmed that there were no plans to do so for the foreseeable future, nor the unforeseeable future, for that matter. But there it is, plain as a DRS review showing three reds, on the front cover of the latest edition of the most important book in world sport. “What have you got to say for yourself?” I asked the hapless Booth at the annual dinner in the Long Room to launch this year’s Almanack. “A reverse-sweep … on the cover?” “It’s deliberate,” he admitted. “We all have to move with the times. It’s Wisden’s way of showing we are down with the kids.” Down with the kids? Wisden? And they call it progress. PS: Aside from that, of course, this year’s effort, is, as always, excellent and required reading, including the always eagerly awaited accolade of the five cricketers of the year (see panel above).
As recently as 1987 this stroke was identified as the instrument of the devil by no less an authority than Peter May, chairman of selectors