Playfair Cricket Annual
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Playfair Cricket Annual 2007

Playfair Cricket Annual is a compact cricket annual. It is a reference book primarily covering first-class cricket in England. Its small size (3⅞ in by 5½ in, 10 cm by 14 cm) makes it ideal for taking to cricket matches. The core of the publication is the 'register' of current first class cricketers playing in England.

The decision as to which cricketer is on the front cover attracts some interest as there is a belief that there is a "hex" ^[1] or "curse" ^[2] associated with it.

Origins

The Playfair Annuals were devised by the company which published various horse racing titles under the imprint of Raceform. There is an idea that the name Playfair came from name of the actor Sir Nigel Playfair although clearly the name was chosen because it could be read as "play fair". In his foreword to the first edition C B Fry says: This Playfair Annual (and what a proper title for a book about the Noble Game) ....

The Raceform company had offices in Mayfair to which the Playfair Offices moved indicating perhaps that the name also took some inspiration from the name Mayfair.

The Playfair Cricket Annual is one of a series of similar sized sporting annuals published under the Playfair name. Other annuals have included Playfair Football Annual, Playfair Rugby Football Annual and Playfair Racing Annual. In addition the Playfair name was used for record books produced by Roy Webber and for Playfair Cricket Monthly. A number of tour brochures were also produced by Playfair Books.

Numbering of editions

The current 2007 edition is stated as being the 60th edition but the annual has only been in its current compact size since the 1963 edition (the 16th edition in this numbering scheme). From 1948 to 1962 the annual was a larger size (4¾ in by 7¼ in, 12 cm by 18 cm) and had a different style. After the publication of the 1962 edition the Playfair titles were taken over by Dickens Press. In 1962 Dickens Press had published The Cricket Annual, by Roy Webber and for 1963 they published the new Playfair Cricket Annual which took its name from the earlier larger format publication but took its size, format and price from The Cricket Annual. Because of this many regard its true precursor as the 1962 The Cricket Annual rather than the 1962 Playfair Cricket Annual and therefore adopt a different numbering scheme since The Cricket Annual can be traced back, albeit with a large number of different titles, to the Star and Leader Cricket Manual of 1895. In this numbering scheme 2006 was the 100th edition; 6 years being missed out in both world wars (2006-1895+1-6-6=100).

Current contents

The current contents are:

• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Current Season
  • Details of England's records against the touring teams
  • Register of the touring teams
  • County register, averages and records
  • Umpires register
• Previous Season
  • Touring teams and university register
  • Statistical highlights
  • First-class averages
  • Competition results and tables
  • Cricketer of the year awards
• Career Records
  • First class and limited overs
  • Test and limited overs internationals
• Cricket Records
  • First class
  • Test and limited overs internationals
  • Women's Test cricket
• Test Match Scores
• Fixtures

County register, averages, and records

Since the first compact edition of 1963 the core of the publication has been a section giving a county by county list of current cricketers, their county averages in the previous season together with some introductory notes on the county and the major county records. There has always been a list of the abbreviations used and the counties have always been listed in alphabetical order with Derbyshire first and Yorkshire last.

The introductory notes section has expanded, largely because of the introduction of limited overs cricket competitions. A much longer list of officials is now given; originally only the secretary and captain were listed.

The Who's Who section has also greatly expanded because of the limited overs cricket competitions. Other details like the player's schools and height have been added. The number of chatty comments has been reduced (e.g. 'one of the fastest outfielders in game'). The treatment of new and released players has varied somewhat over the years.

The main change to the county averages section has been that since 1986 the averages have just been for County Championship matches rather than for all First class cricket played by the county.

The records section is largely unchanged except for the introduction of limited overs cricket records.

Up until 1972 most years listed potted scores in home championship matches but lack of space caused this to be removed.

Eleven cricketers of the year

From 1950 to 1962 the annual produced a list of its Eleven Cricketers of the Year for the previous season. Tony Lock was selected 7 times, Peter May 6 times.

• 1950 : Trevor Bailey, Freddie Brown, Tom Burtt, Martin Donnelly, Tom Goddard, Walter Hadlee, Len Hutton, Roly Jenkins, John Langridge, Reg Simpson, Bert Sutcliffe
• 1951 : Godfrey Evans, Laurie Fishlock, Ken Grieves, Gilbert Parkhouse, Sonny Ramadhin, David Sheppard, Roy Tattersall, Alf Valentine, Everton Weekes, Frank Worrell, Doug Wright
• 1952 : Bob Appleyard, Alec Bedser, Geoffrey Chubb, Dennis Compton, Tom Dollery, Tom Graveney, Jim Laker, Peter May, Jack Robertson, Eric Rowan, Willie Watson
• 1953 : Alec Bedser, Brian Close, Godfrey Evans, Tom Graveney, Len Hutton, Jim Laker, Tony Lock, Peter May, David Sheppard, Fred Trueman, Johnny Wardle
• 1954 : Trevor Bailey, Alec Bedser, Bruce Dooland, Bill Edrich, Lindsay Hassett, Neil Harvey, Len Hutton, Ray Lindwall, Tony Lock, Peter May, David Sheppard
• 1955 : Bob Appleyard, Denis Compton, Bruce Dooland, Les Jackson, Don Kenyon, Jim Laker, Peter Loader, Tony Lock, Fazal Mahmood, Brian Statham, Alan Watkins
• 1956 : Colin Cowdrey, Bruce Dooland, Peter Heine, Doug Insole, Tony Lock, Jackie McGlew, Roy Marshall, Brian Statham, Hugh Tayfield, John Waite
• 1957 : Denis Compton, Jim Laker, Gil Langley, Tony Lock, Peter May, Keith Miller, Peter Richardson, David Sheppard, Stuart Surridge, George Tribe, Cyril Washbrook
• 1958 : Colin Cowdrey, Tom Graveney, Peter Loader, Tony Lock, Peter May, John Murray, Jim Parks, Derek Shackleton, MJK Smith, Collie Smith, Fred Trueman
• 1959 : Dennis Brookes, Godfrey Evans, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, Les Jackson, Tony Lock, Roy Marshall, Peter May, Arthur Milton, Derek Shackleton, Raman Subba Row, Willie Watson
• 1960 : Abbas Ali Baig, Trevor Bailey, Ken Barrington, Ronnie Burnet, Colin Cowdrey, Ray Illingworth, Jim Parks, Geoff Pullar, MJK Smith, Jim Stewart, Bryan Stott
• 1961 : Trevor Bailey, Ted Dexter, Norman Horner, Henry Horton, Tony Lewis, Alan Moss, Michael Norman, Eric Russell, Brian Statham, Fred Trueman, Peter Wight
• 1962 : Bill Alley, Richie Benaud, Jack Flavell, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, Bill Lawry, Ken Mackay, Roy Marshall, John Murray, Peter Parfitt, Derek Shackleton, Raman Subba Row

Status of matches

As one of the leading statistical cricket publications, Playfair has to take a view on the status of Test, One Day International, first-class and domestic one-day (i.e. List A) matches. It generally complies with the statistics published by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.

As regards the long standing debate about the first-class career totals of established players such as W G Grace and Jack Hobbs, Playfair has consistently used the Wisden totals. For more information about alternative versions of first-class statistics, see Variations in First-Class Cricket Statistics.

Bill Frindall has never been afraid to ignore official rulings. The ICC ruling that South African rebel tours between 1981/82 and 1989/90 were not to be first-class was referred to as "inane" and "outrageous" and ignored. More recently he has referred to the decision to give Test status to a match between Australia and an ICC World XI (part of the ICC Super Series) as "witless" and ignored it. He has taken the same view of that season's one-day international matches.

Larger edition

In each case there was a 16 page photographic section in addition to the numbered pages.

The 1948 annual was actually called Playfair Books Cricket Annual but subsequent years were simply called Playfair Cricket Annual. There were two editions of this 1948 annual which differed in the back cover. One had a Playfair logo, the other a Schweppes advertisement.

The 1958 edition was more cheaply produced than the other years and is most likely to become loose.

Compact edition

Playfair Cricket Annual 1963

References

Peter Wynne-Thomas wrote two articles on the 'Playfair Cricket Annual' for 'The Cricket Statistician' which were published in 1989.^[3][4][5]