The Cricketers' Who's Who 2023

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An established T20 genius in the IPL with the Mumbai Indians, Suryakumar Yadav was a difficult player to rank.

Since debuting for Pakistan as a teenager, Shaheen Shah Afridi has wasted no time establishing himself as one of the premier bowlers in world cricket. View image in fullscreen Ian Botham in 1981, the year he warned in his Cricketers’ Who’s Who entry of the dangers of ‘playing too many matches’. The annual tome of player profiles, stats and anecdotes pored over by fans and players alike is now on its 43rd edition. As the game’s professionals embark on another domestic summer, plenty will have a copy of CWW in their kitbag. In 1983 Sproat also committed what Tam Dalyell described as “one of the most spectacular political boobs of all time” by leaving his Aberdeen South seat for a supposedly safer constituency, which he lost.Benefiting from a 6ft 6 frame, Afridi bowls at a great pace and generates some tricky bounce even on the flatter pitches in Pakistan and the UAE. He has been a match-winner in every format throughout his career, however, and has proven to be a transformative captain.

When given the opportunity, he also swings hard with the willow in hand, and has often provided helpful runs for his team. More than 400 (nearly but not quite all) players who make up the 18-county system, as well as all the contracted women’s players, have answered questions ranging from the thorny (“Which bowler would you least like to face? It would be unfair to suggest that’s about the same length of time it takes Sibley to scratch his way to 28, wouldn’t it? The move was disastrous for Sproat, pushing him into the political wilderness for the next nine years, but did at least mean he could concentrate on CWW. Since averaging over 110 in the 2019 Ashes, the Sydney native has been slightly less productive in Test cricket, but remains among the elite batters in the longest format.

The professional contracts at the time not stretching to 12 months, all but the most well-off or successful players had to find winter employment. Over the years, players used to fill in forms for each other with predictable results – local libraries must have forever been running low on the Kama Sutra if the answers to “What’s your favourite book? There’s a lot of time to talk during matches, and we’d often play ‘guess the cricketer’: “This guy’s 40 years old, he averages 24 with the ball, his highest score is 74 not out and his lookalike is Frank Lampard. Murtagh and his Middlesex teammates would no doubt have a chuckle at the assortment of perms, combovers and luxuriously meaty sideburns on offer in the early 1980s editions.

Khan’s red-ball career has also set off at an impressive pace with Afghanistan recently earning Test status. Jonathan Liew bids farewell to Eoin Morgan, who stood down last year as England’s most successful white-ball captain. Back in 1980 the Conservative MP Iain Sproat had the same problem when he compiled and edited the first edition of CWW, although there were no media managers around then to do his bidding.Not only are players’ heights listed (as they are in current editions) but weight too; some of the less lissom no doubt rounding down their stats before sending them to Sproat.

As usual, Wisden includes the eagerly awaited Notes by the Editor, the Cricketers of the Year awards, and obituaries. And, as ever, there are reports and scorecards for every Test, together with forthright opinion, compelling features and comprehensive records. Asked how to go about dismissing Steve Smith, Jack Leach responds simply: “Keep my foot behind the line. Wisden also reports on England's triumph at the T20 World Cup, to go alongside their 2019 ODI success, and on their Test team's thrilling rejuvenation under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes.New from G2 is a Palace Legends V-Neck T-Shirt featuring Michael Wylie's typographical football design including all the big name players, managers, trophies and events that have shaped the history of the South London premier league club. Keep them up to date with the latest opinions, the best sports-writing and the most comprehensive reports on their favourite game. It is a book of three parts: comment; record; and delightful minutiae, which always brings the most cheer.