by Mayukh Ghosh
Histories of events.
History of a competition.
History of specific issues.
Biographies.
National history.
Quiz book.
Club history.
Photographic study.
Tour histories.
Anthologies.
On Cricket. All written by one man.
He has also written on Australian Rules Football.
Two sports he did not play much.
In that respect, he is much better at golf and tennis
Bernard Whimpress’ cricketing exploits began when he routinely faced underarm bowling from his father.
Bill Lawry and Richie Benaud were early heroes.
No wonder he bowled a bit of leg-spin and once managed to occupy the crease for 85 minutes without troubling the scorers.
Aged twelve, he realised that his love for cricket statistics was probably more than his love for playing the game. It all started years later, though, when he and his friend began publishing a newspaper devoted to Australian Rules Football. That led to him editing a weekly football magazine and in his early thirties he wrote a comprehensive history on South Australian Football.
The very next year he, along with Nigel Hart, published a centenary history of Tests at Adelaide Oval.
He was later awarded a PhD for a history of Aborigines in Australian cricket. In 1999, it was published as a book ‘Passport to Nowhere’.
Since then Whimpress has been a regular writer, besides managing the responsibility of the curator of the Adelaide Oval Museum for fifteen years.
A sports historian. A journalist. A photographer. He has done it all.
And has now chosen his favourite cricket books.
And a ‘special’ magazine.
Here they are:
1. The Cricketer’s Progress: Meadowland to Mumbai by Eric Midwinter: By far the most readable and illuminating history of the game from its 18th century origins through to the IPL in the 21st century. Midwinter is a scholar who wears his erudition lightly and brings his rich knowledge of social and literary history to bear upon his subject across various ages and places.
2. Beyond a Boundary by CLR James: A cricket memoir sometimes described as the Citizen Kane of cricket books and whose question in his preface, ‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know’ is the starting point for serious writing on the game.
3. Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson by Gideon Haigh: My favourite biography of a cricketer in which the author plumbs the depths of an ‘extraordinary ordinary man’. Iverson’s fascinating career at the top was brief and limited to just the 1950-51 Ashes series in which he made a powerful impact. Gideon Haigh takes great pains to convey the inner man by investigating way beyond the mere fraction of Iverson we know from his sporting deeds. The book wears its psychology suitably well: we have theory when necessary but essentially the subject also remains a mystery man as well as a mystery spinner.
4. A Last English Summer by Duncan Hamilton: A journal of, and a journey through the 2009 English season documenting the game at different levels and in different forms. Hamilton is one of the finest sports writers of the present time, who has won the English Sports Book of the Year three times, and this splendid book combines history, reflection and reporting which might have given him another award.
5. Cricket and Conquest: The History of South African Cricket Retold 1795-2014 by Andre Odendaal, Krish Reddy, Christopher Merrett and Jonty Winch :A grand narrative, superb in its design and execution, and busting the myth that South Africa’s cricket history was merely a white man’s story. Revisionist history at its best.
6. A Corner of a Foreign Field: An Indian history of a British sport by Ramachandra Guha: A superb insight into Indian cricket from its development under the Raj through to its dominance as India’s national sport in the modern era. A special highlight is Guha’s documentation of the struggle of India’s first great slow bowler Palwankar Baloo against caste discrimination.
7. First-Class Cricket in Australia Vols I and II 1850-51 to 1976-77 by Ray Webster: The volumes I have used most regularly in my own cricket research and writing. Not only superb statistical history for the provision of scorecards of all first-class matches in Australia from its beginnings to the Centenary Test, but a marvellous provision of summaries of games and seasons told with brilliant economy. Allan Miller supported the compiler with a fine contribution as editor.
8. Between Wickets by Ray Robinson: A book with a wide span covering the leading Australian and English players of the interwar years, an analysis of body-line (adjective) and Bodyline (noun), playing styles and captaincy. Robinson is an acute observer of technique but what elevates his book is his ability to place players in context not only in relation to each other but to history as well.
9. ‘Ave a Go, Yer Mug!’: Australian Cricket Crowds from Larrikin to Ocker by Richard Cashman:
Qualifies as a classic not only because it has a field to itself but because of the author’s skill as a social historian and analyst, and the excellent selection of images which support a lively text
10. The Strangers Who Came Home: The first Australian Cricket tour of England by John Lazenby:
A narrative history of what is regarded as the first Australian side which toured England in 1878 although it came ten years after the Aboriginal team of 1868. Lazenby details the numerous lead-up matches in Australia before the side arrived and another round of games at home after the completion of the English tour. The author’s strength is his mastery of so much detail while giving precious life to his story
And the special magazine:
11. Cricket Lore by Richard Hill (editor):
The world’s best historical cricket magazine ran through 47 editions from 1991 to 2005 with each issue consisting of around 50,000 words of high-class copy and might be regarded as books in themselves. I was privileged to become a regular contributor for around ten years and share a glittering stage with such luminaries as Eric Midwinter, Ramachandra Guha, Peter Wynne-Thomas, Keith Sandiford, Stephen Chalke, Peter Hartland, Roderick Easdale, David Foot, Frank Tyson, Neville Turner, Christopher Sandford and others. In one sense Richard Hill could be viewed as the editor of 47 marvellous anthologies; alternatively, the more than two million words in the magazine represented a vast encyclopaedia of the game
Bernard Whimpress has written some excellent books. He is a scholar and the amount of research he often does for his books is remarkable. His favourite books, understandably, highlight the same virtues. Rich in historical content, they are worth reading.
P.S. Whimpress’ next book (on George Giffen) is scheduled to be published in November 2020.