Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack

The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack is an annual periodical released in April at the start of the English county cricket season. It was first published in 1864, by John Wisden, a former cricket player and a sports equipment shop owner, in England under the name The Cricketer’s Almanack. Referred to as the “Bible of Cricket,” the almanac is easily recognized by its distinctive yellow cover, which debuted in 1938. The first edition had only 112 pages; 21st-century editions are about 1,500 pages long and cover cricket played across the world in the previous year. Early editions are popular with contemporary collectors and can sell for thousands of pounds. The publication is the longest-running sports periodical in the world.

Origin

John Wisden (1826–84), nicknamed the “Little Wonder,” was an English cricketer considered by many to be one of the best fast bowlers of his day. He claimed more than 1,000 wickets in first-class cricket at an astounding bowling average (proportion of total runs conceded and wickets taken by a bowler) of only 6.66. However, he is best remembered for claiming all 10 wickets clean bowled (method of dismissal in which a bowler uses the ball to hit the wooden stumps and bails behind the batter) in a match at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 1850—a feat that has not been replicated in first-class cricket since.

Wisden retired from cricket in 1863 because of rheumatism. More than a decade previously, he had opened a sports equipment store in London and founded John Wisden & Company. In 1864, under the company’s proprietorship, he published the first edition of the almanac that would go on to bear his name. It was not limited to cricket; indeed, it included filler such as the dates of battles in the English Civil War, an account of King Charles I’s trial, and a list of winners of the Saint Leger horse race. It was priced at one shilling (five pence), and surviving copies are worth thousands of pounds today. The first edition’s preface explained,

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In offering our first edition of the Cricketer’s Almanack to the patrons of the “Noble Game,” we have taken great pains to collect a certain amount of information, which we trust will prove interesting to all those that take pleasure in this glorious pastime.

History

The second edition, in 1865, was more focused on cricket, most filler having been eliminated. Scorecards for all county matches as well as Oxford, Cambridge, and Marylebone Cricket Club matches were included. The edition also included a register of births and deaths of famous cricket players as well as a biography of George Parr, one of the most prominent cricketers of the era, who captained the England cricket team during a tour of Australia in 1863. In 1867 advertisements appeared in the almanac’s pages for the first time, including an ad for the Wisden company’s Patent Catapulta, a bowling machine. The publication’s name was changed to The Cricketers’ Almanack in 1869, and the following year it was changed to John Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack, the title used through 1937.

In 1872 the first list of cricketers who had died in the previous year was published in the almanac. Sydney Pardon took over as editor in 1891 and served until 1925. The formal obituary section began in 1892, and by 1924 the almanac had grown to more than 1,000 pages. The “Notes by the Editor” section, consisting of comments on the state of cricket, was also introduced during Pardon’s stewardship, and it became a staple.

The 1915 edition, published despite the beginning of World War I, saw the first price increase (to 7.5 pence) in the almanac’s history. In the 1916 edition the page count dropped from 791 to 299, as little cricket was played during the war. The 1917 edition had 351 pages, but more than 100 were taken up by a special “Deaths in the War” section. In 1918 the almanac saw another price hike, to 2 shillings (10 pence).

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In 1938 the 75th edition of the almanac came out, bearing its current title, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, for the first time. Other firsts in this edition included an index and coverage of women’s cricket. The edition also sported a new cover design, featuring a soon-to-be famous woodcut by Eric Ravilious depicting two Victorian-era cricketers playing the game while wearing top hats and tight trousers. After World War II began in 1939 the editions through 1945 saw the number of pages reduced, because fewer matches were being played and paper was in short supply. The 1941 edition’s page count was only about half that of the previous edition, and its publication was delayed after the publisher’s, and later the printer’s, offices were hit by aerial attacks. In 1944 the Wisden sports equipment factory was bombed, resulting in the loss of the buildings and the company records there.

The almanac marked its centennial, in 1963, by instituting the Wisden Trophy (replaced by the Richards-Botham Trophy in 2020), a prize to be awarded to the winner of a Test cricket series between England and the West Indies. In addition, the almanac’s editors asked prominent cricket writer Neville Cardus to name “Six Giants of the Wisden Century” (a list of notable cricketers active in the 100 years since the periodical’s first edition). Cardus chose English cricketers W.G. Grace, Jack Hobbs, Tom Richardson, and Sydney Barnes and Australian batters Victor Trumper and Donald Bradman. He also mentioned more than a dozen other players he had considered for the honor.

In the 1970s the almanac expanded its coverage as cricket became more popular across the globe and as the first women’s and men’s One Day International (ODI) World Cup tournaments took place, in 1973 and 1975, respectively. A special millennium edition, published in 2000, carried a feature titled “Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Century,” a list comprising Bradman, Viv Richards, Garry Sobers, Shane Warne, and Hobbs. The players had been chosen through a vote by a panel of 100 cricketers and other experts. In 2003, under one-off editor Tim de Lisle, the almanac featured a cover photograph for the first time in its history—that year an image of England batter Michael Vaughan. The practice was continued in subsequent editions.

In 2008 the almanac was made available in e-book form for the first time. In addition, a new award was introduced to recognize the Schools Cricketer of the Year—English cricketer Jonny Bairstow being the first recipient. The 2024 edition included women in the almanac’s celebrated “Births and Deaths of Test Cricketers” section for the first time.

The editors of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack in all its variants are listed below:

• W.H. Knight and George H. West (1864–86; exact roles and tenures unclear)
• Charles Pardon (1887–90)
• Sydney Pardon (1891–1925)
• C. Stewart Caine (1926–33)
• Sydney Southerton (1934–35)
• Wilfrid Brookes (1936–39)
• Haddon Whitaker (1940–43)
• Hubert Preston (1944–51)
• Norman Preston (1952–80)
• John Woodcock (1981–86)
• Graeme Wright (1987–92)
• Matthew Engel (1993–2000)
• Graeme Wright (2001–02)
• Tim de Lisle (2003)
• Matthew Engel (2004–07)
• Scyld Berry (2008–11)
• Lawrence Booth (2012– )

Cricketers of the year

Wisden’s “Five Cricketers of the Year” annual feature has undergone various transformations over time. Its predecessor, launched in 1889 under the label “Six Great Bowlers of the Year,” featured Johnny Briggs, George Lohmann, Bobby Peel, J.J. Ferris, Sammy Woods, and C.T.B. Turner. Nine batters were recognized in 1890: Billy Barnes, Bobby Abel, Billy Gunn, Maurice Read, Arthur Shrewsbury, Louis Hall, Robert Henderson, Frank Sugg, and Albert Ward. Over the course of the 1890s the feature recognized specialist wicketkeepers (each being a fielder who stands behind the batter’s wicket), bowlers, batters, and all-round cricketers in different years. Cricket legend W.G. Grace was named the sole award winner in 1896. Subsequently, the almanac’s editor named cricket players of the year in every edition, without considering their playing positions, the only disruptions occurring during the two World Wars.

Cricketers conventionally feature in the list only once, though exceptions have been made for honorary awards. The list recognizes players primarily for their performance during the English season, and it is thus heavily stacked with cricketers from England. Non-English cricketers have typically been included in the list thanks to strong performances while touring England, with rare exceptions. Sri Lankan cricketer Sanath Jayasuriya was included in the 1997 list for his role in Sri Lanka’s 1996 ODI World Cup victory, which contributed heavily toward the development of aggressive batting, bowling, and fielding tactics in limited overs cricket. In 2008 there appeared a special list of players from the past who had missed out on the honor. It included Bishan Singh Bedi, Abdul Qadir, Wes Hall, Jeff Thomson, and Inzamam-ul-Haq. Women have been included in the list only since 2009, when Claire Taylor became the first woman to be named one of the Five Cricketers of the Year.

Since 2004 the list of cricketers of the year has been augmented by an award for the Leading Cricketer in the World, recognizing top performers in the previous year. Ricky Ponting was the inaugural winner. This award can be won multiple times. A list of backdated winners, going back to 1900, was published in 2007. Virat Kohli won the award for three years in a row between 2016 and 2018. An award for women’s Leading Cricketer in the World was introduced in 2014, and Meg Lanning was named the inaugural winner.

Other award sections have included a Leading T20 Cricketer in the World since 2017, a Book of the Year since 2003, a Cricket Photograph of the Year since 2010, and an annual Writing Competition honor since 2013.