Few things one never knew about Wisden

The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack >is a cricket reference book which is published in an annual basis in the United Kingdom and is also the most popular sports reference book in the world. However, there are few things which were unknown to any person, either inside the cricket field or outside the cricket field. Following are some of the mind blowing things to know about this amazing book history till date.

1. The Almanack in consistently known as the “Bible of cricket”, but never by Wisden, which lets other people use this phrase and throughout its 146 edition, has been independent of cricket administration. It is totally unofficial sports reference book.

2. John Wisden who introduced this book was a pioneering cricketer in the Victorian era. He was a fast bowler standing 5’4 and was nicknamed as the Little Wonder. He took all ten wickets in an innings, with one of them being clean bowled. In 1850, he opted for business, and sold cricket gear in Leamington irrespective of his cricket success. In 1859, he went on to become the first English cricketer to tour to Canada and USA.

3. In its entire 146 years, there have been 16 editors of Wisden. Sydney Pardon was the person who served the longest tenure as an editor from 1891 to 1925 and he was the one who had introduced the Notes section. Tim de Lisle was the person who served for a short period of time in 2003 after taking on the position for one edition between two former editors who returned for second time. The 2008 edition was taken over by Scyld Berry after Matthew Engel stepped down after 12 years.

4. In 1938, the front image of the Wisden book included the woodcut image of two Victorian players playing cricket in top hats and tight trousers. Eric Ravilious made the woodcut. He was a well known modernist artist who died four years later in the war.

5. Since 1864, every year, a new edition of Wisden gets published. The first edition was only priced at one shilling. It had 112 pages and was padded out with many items not related to cricket, some of which even included important dates of the English Civil War battles, the rules of quoiting and the winners of the Oaks.

6. Wisden was for a short period of time in the hands of late Robert Maxwell, who was the fraudster and a tycoon. His publishing conglomerate, Macdonald took over the publishing authority in the 1970s.

7. The popular yellow cover had appeared on the seventy fifth edition in the year 1938. This jacket on the earlier few editions was colored salmon pink and the first real person to have appeared on this cover was Michael Vaughan in 2003.

8. In 1944 in the month of February, the Wisden factory situated at Mortlake to the south west side of London got hit by a German bomb. All of the records of the company were destroyed. However, the records which mattered were already typed in the book, which continued to appear throughout the year.

9. In Wisden, one of the oldest honors in sports dates back to 1889. This person would be chosen as one of the Wisden’s Cricketers of the year. No player would be chosen twice. Since 1927, there have been five players who have been chosen in each of the edition, with an exception of the war years, from 1941 to 1946, to nine batsmen in 1890.

10. For the 2000 edition, worldwide panels of hundred cricketers were invited by Wisden along with experts to name the five cricketers of the century. The winners amongst them were Sir Garry Sobers, Sir Viv Richards, Sir Don Bradman, Sir Jack Hobbs and Shane Warne. Each and every member had voted for Bradman for his test batting average of 99.94.

11. In 2004, a new accolade got introduced, namely the leading cricketer in the world, which was based completely upon a players previous calendar year performance. Ricky Ponting > was the first player to be honored.

12. In 2006 edition, the number of Wisden Cricketers of the year since the war came from five to 300 players. In 2008, it identified 5 prominent players from the past, who for some reasons, had missed out the honor. These players included Bishan Bedi, Abdul Qadir, Jeff Thomson, Wes Hall and Inzamam-ul-Haq.

13. Sir Paul Getty, who was the billionaire philanthropist, a cricket lover and even a book collector, like this book. He later on bought the John Wisden and Company in 1993 and remained the chairman until his death in 2003. Subsequently, in 2008, the company was sold to A & C Black Publishing.

14. In 2009, Claire Taylor> was chosen by Wisden as one of the five cricketers of the year. Claire became the first woman to have won the accolade where she joined the throng of more than 550 male winners.

15. The present edition, of 2010 is the 147th Wisden Almanack. In 1963, a full set of the book in good condition was worth 250 pounds. In the present stage, the book could cost around 100,000 pounds. Oscar winning lyricist, Sir Tim Rice> is one of the collectors of this book.