Skip to main content

Who's Who back to its trivial best


SPORTS BOOK OF THE WEEK



The Cricketers' Who's Who 2012, edited by Jo Harman

Published by: Pitch Publishing on behalf of All Out Cricket

What's it about?



As those who would damage the beloved County Championship know all too well, if there is one thing to which cricket followers do not take kindly it is change, in particular unnecessary change.

Outrage, therefore, greeted the 2011 edition of the Cricketers' Who's Who, which is not an institution of Wisden magnitude but has nonetheless been around now for 33 years.

Consternation arose largely from the disappearance of the personal information and opinions that added colour to the player profiles and gave the Who's Who its unique selling point.  This was forced in part by circumstance, with a change of publisher during the close season disrupting the normal process of gathering in forms filled in by the players themselves.

These gems of trivia were replaced for each player by 'an objective view of their skills and characters' in the words of the Pitch Publishing editorial team.

Happily, fears that the more earnest, worthy tone was the shape of things to come have been allayed.  The 2012 edition has been restored, more or less, to its former glory.

'We invited comment, we listened to it, we weighed it up, and we have reacted," wrote the editor, Jo Harman, in his introductory notes.

There has been a reaction, too, to complaints from some players about false information appearing in past Who's Who editions, sometimes to their embarrassment.  The paper forms players used to complete -- and which, inevitably, would be prime vehicles for dressing room mischief -- have given way to online surveys.

Hence we can hope that Jonathan Batty's assertion that he would be prime minister if he were not a cricketer is no less honest than Gareth Cross's that he would be a binman.  And that Will Bragg's preferred reading is the Financial Times and James Taylor's favourite band is the Pussycat Dolls.

The editor adds a warning for cricket writers looking for a line on a slow day, however. "As with Wikipedia, approach with care..."

The Editor



Jo Harman, former sports journalist at BSkyB, is web editor for the Professional Cricketers' Association's partner magazine All Out Cricket.

Buy The Cricketers' Who's Who 2012 direct from amazon.co.uk

Browse more cricket books at The Sports Bookshelf Shop

Home

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Leave a comment or submit your own sports book review

Popular posts from this blog

2018 Cross Sports Book of the Year Awards: all the winners are named

Brave Paralympian Martine Wright scoops Autobiography prize Add caption The inspiring story of the GB Paralympic athlete Martine Wright has been named Sports Autobiography of the Year at the 16th Sports Book Awards and will be a strong contender for overall Sports Book of the Year for 2018, which will be decided by a public vote. Written in collaboration with journalist Sue Mott, Unbroken , published by Simon & Schuster, tells the remarkable story of Martine’s incredible fight back from the horrors of the July 7 atrocities in London in 2005, when she was sharing a carriage on a tube train on the Circle Line with a suicide bomber, who detonated his device just outside Aldgate station. Seven passengers around her were killed among 52 who lost their lives that day but she survived, albeit at the cost of both her legs. Martine, who took up wheelchair tennis and sitting volleyball as part of her rehabilitation, represented Great Britain in the latter at the 2012 Paralympics...
19 comments
Read more

Shortlists announced for Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2019

Nine categories to be judged as new sponsor starts three-year backing The shortlists have been announced for the annual Sports Book Awards, now sponsored by The Telegraph after the newspaper group signed up to a three-year partnership deal. The Telegraph replaces Cross Pens as headline sponsor. The awards were launched by the National Sporting Club in 2003 and for many years were known simply as the British Sports Book Awards. There are nine categories being judged this year, with the winners of each to be announced early in June. In the autobiography category, former Newcastle physio Paul Ferris’s extraordinary memoir The Boy on the Shed is joined by equestrian Charlotte Dujardin’s The Girl on the Dancing Horse , Kevin Keegan’s My Life in Football , cricketer Moeen Ali’s Moeen , How to be a Footballer by Peter Crouch and superbike star Jonathan Rea’s Dream. Believe. Achieve . The biography category sees boxing, golf, motor racing, rowing, gambling and football repre...
5 comments
Read more

Heavyweights slug it out for title hat-trick

Donald McRae and Duncan Hamilton both named on shortlist for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2019 Duncan Hamilton Two of British sports writing’s biggest names are among a shortlist of six titles from which the 2019 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be chosen in early December. Donald McRae and Duncan Hamilton , the only authors to have won the award twice in its 30-year history, both made the final cut after the award’s judging panel whittled down a longlist of 14 to come up with their final selection. South African-born McRae, whose in-depth interviews are an outstanding feature of The Guardian newspaper’s sports pages, won the judges’ vote with Dark Trade: Lost in Boxing in 1996, and with In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens in 2002. Hamilton, born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, raised in Nottingham and now an adoptive Yorkshireman, was successful in 2007 with Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years With Brian Clough , and again t...
1 comment
Read more