WAR OVERTAKES CRICKET

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23111, 29 August 1940, Page 5

WAR OVERTAKES CRICKET

“ WISDEN’S ” AS USUAL “So great was the thing which started, for us, on September 3 last year,” writes R. C, Robertson-Glas-gow, in "Wisden's Cricketers’ Almanack” for 1940, ”so pervasive of our thoughts, homes, even of our pastimes and sports, that to look back on the English cricket season of 1939 is like peeping curiously .through the wrong end of a telescope at a very small but very happy world. “It is true that throughout' the season the rumble of war rolled louder and louder, that our guests the West Indies, excepting L. N. Constantine and E. A. Martindale, had to sail for home with seven matches unplayed, that in the county championship several matches had to be abruptly cancelled; but. in a sense, it was a strangely happy season. There may have been more rain than is convenient to fast bowlers, thin shoes, or anxious secretaries; but. as is customary when great issues hang in the balance, men set themselves to a quiet but determined enjoyment. They turned to’ cricket as to an old friend who gives you a seat, a glass of beer, and something sane to talk about.” "Wisden’s” 871 pages are as full of facts and figures as usual, and the section of “Cricket Records” has been enlarged by the inclusion of three new tables, one of which appears in response to many requests that the art of wicket-keeping should be more fully treated. With the suspension of first-class cricket in England. “Wisden’s” will, in future, revert to the thin volumes which cricket enthusiasts will remember during the Great War.