Wisden Cricket Monthly editor in chief, Phil Walker, reflects on 100 issues of the magazine, which launches its centenary edition this month – available to pre-order here.
First of all, thanks to everyone who turned a page, smiled at a bad joke, sent us a ‘sternly worded’, told their mates and stayed the course. Thanks to all the writers, talkers and snappers, the undergrad researchers and star interviewers, and especially to the sad-eyed moneymen for keeping the show on the road.
It’s a cliché, and a lie, to say that we never take it for granted. Sometimes it’s impossible not to – when you’re knackered, Jo’s kid’s been up all night, I’ve forgotten another meeting, Joey our designer’s not picking up his phone again and the gravity of all that swirls around modern life pulls again at whatever once passed for youthful-ish buoyancy. Oddly, the ennui kicks in especially sharply every fourth winter, for about a seven-week stretch either side of Christmas.
It rarely lasts for long. There are times when I feel (amid the routine existential dread) that this is a haven over here, a blessed release from the everyday – and that for all its absurdist grandiosity and intractable problems, the game (in all its forms) is such a singular act of genius that it remains a pretty good estimation of Leibniz’s old line about the best of all possible worlds. Then I commission another article or go on another podcast talking about how, say, the game in some regions has been turned into a barely concealed weapon deployed by nuclear states who hate each other. That tends to balance things out a bit.
I get the fears about the game’s domestic future, and the future of the Test game, and what will be left of our relationship should it wither. These are legitimate concerns, where a certain scepticism is not just healthy but essential. Where I balk is when scepticism collapses into joylessness, and the discourse (that word again) becomes so blindingly negative that it actively discourages the cricket-curious from getting deeper into it. The trenchant tribalism of the time is a societal issue hungrily absorbed into cricket that benefits precisely no one. After all, if actual cricket people are so down on the thing, then why should anyone else bother?
Joe Root gets it. Joe Root understands, intuitively and empirically, what this whole lark ultimately amounts to. This was him, a few months ago, when we met up in Sheffield for WCM96. “I still feel that if you’re having a tough time with the game, just remember what it was like being a kid and that raw emotion of cracking one out of the middle, opening the curtains in the morning and praying that it’s not raining ’cos you love the game that much.”
Isn’t that beautiful? A philosophy, no doubt hard-won, to underscore his longevity and explain why, even now, he said yes to the Test captaincy.
He was at peace. Ashes hundreds bagged; all that remained was a serene ramble towards Sachin’s magical figure and another shot at a World Cup he’s already won. And what happened? Events, dear boy. Events.
And so we rifle through our book of sporting clichés. Is this his ‘second coming’ here, or his ‘last dance’? Are we in the realm of ‘unfinished business’? And what style of leader will he be this time round?
Well, a selfless and dutiful one, for sure. But let’s not kid ourselves. Root has his eye on next summer, and the sweetest form of catharsis imaginable. By 2027, it will be 12 years since England last won an Ashes series (you might recall Root turning in a celestial knock at Trent Bridge to clinch it). Beat Australia next summer, hand it over to Harry, and resume his personal odyssey to 15,992. Even the most strictly suppressed egos might be a little tickled by that.
He takes on the job in an intriguing state. Individually, he can’t fail. He’s in that rare position of having already done everything – it’s like Alastair Cook playing for Essex towards the end, and still being a success even when he got nought. Even if Root’s average declines, it won’t damage the legacy, which is already off the charts.
Collectively, however, English cricket needs him. They have called upon literally the only unimpeachable male figure in their game. Everyone else of relevance, to a greater or lesser extent, is a bit, or a lot, compromised. Only Joe exists above the fray. Only Joe.
He may not have the tactical intuitiveness of Brook, who was my choice. As Nasser Hussain observed, it’s curious that for such a great player Root doesn’t always appear to have much instinct for that side of the game. How effectively Root dovetails with the new head coach Stephen Fleming (a smart appointment) will be one thing, while it’ll be fun to see how he uses his fellow Yorkshireman and co-captain, who’s also, rather usefully, the kind of laid-back sort who won’t have minded being passed over for the big job. (Plenty before him would, by the way.) The three may yet form a funky trio.
There’s an uncanny neatness to Root’s return coinciding with our hundredth issue. When we first resurrected this grand old title back in October 2017, it was Root who adorned its first cover. We’d found an old shot of Bradman in his baggy green and got Joe to imitate the image ahead of his first overseas tour as England captain. That winter, full of beans, he took a youthful squad to Australia, and ended up on a drip.
He remains the one true constant across our first century. As we buckle up to head into the next, it feels apt, even a little poetic, that he is there again, fronting up, greyer and wiser, yet still that little boy as much in thrall to the game as when he first flung open the curtains praying for sunshine.
Welcome to issue 100 of Wisden Cricket Monthly. Enjoy it. It’s one of our best. Let’s do a whole bunch more.
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