Peter Wynne-Thomas (1934–2021)

Nottingham is close to my heart for it is my late grandmother's birthplace. So, although I have yet to visit Nottinghamshire I at least, thanks to "Cricket Grounds of Nottinghamshire", have some extensive background knowledge of all the cricket grounds in the county used in first-class and List A matches.

There of course is Trent Bridge as well as grounds in Southwell, Newark and Beeston, amongst others. We're also provided with some relevant statistics, such as the fact that George Gunn scored the most first-class runs at Trent Bridge (16,493 at 38.53), which is not surprising as he also holds the record for the most number of first-class matches played there (292 from 1902-32).

Somewhat out of date now obviously but you might find a use for it.… (mais)

F.S. Ashley-Cooper never played cricket to a high level but here is, the subject of a biography from the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Instead, Ashley-Cooper is renowned for being what could be called “the father of cricket statistics”, thanks to his volumes of work on statistics and cricket in general. Indeed, much of the forty pages of this slim volume are taken up with Ashley-Cooper’s bibliography, much of which is now extremely rare and expensive.

Wynne-Thomas makes a good fist of both the biography, even though he could not find any reference as to what school(s) Ashley-Cooper attended, and bibliography.… (mais)

Ivo Bligh is best known for his role in the creation of The Ashes, the small urn that Australia and England fight for in one of the world’s oldest ongoing sporting contests. Bligh captained the English cricket team that travelled to Australia in 1882/83, the first tour by an English team following the 1882 victory by Australia which led to the famous mock obituary of English cricket. So, a biography of Bligh, however slim, with details of his performance in each of the first-class matches he played in, is greatly appreciated.

Peter Wynn-Thomas is a veteran cricket historian of great repute and “Ivo Bligh” details his aristocratic background and his surprisingly short international and first-class career, giving us exhaustive details of his batting career season by season, for each team he played for. One used to think that with the internet that these books were no longer required but now that Cricket Archive is a subscription service, we may need to turn back to books like this.… (mais)