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Cricket Society Latest News and Announcements

ACS Wins the 2024 Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship

We are delighted to announce that the Association of Cricket Statisticians & Historians (‘ACS’) has won the 2024 Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship.

The Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship, a collaboration between The Cricket Society and the British Society of Sports History, is awarded annually to a person or persons who have made an outstanding and/or unsung contribution to cricket scholarship. The award seeks to recognise good cricket writing and research whether of an ‘academic’ or ‘popular’ nature. Winners are decided on the recommendations of a panel drawn from officers of both organisations.

On Thursday 22nd August, John Bryant ACS Committee Chair was presented with a special trophy by former Chair of The Cricket Society Nigel Hancock . The presentation took place during the annual conference of the British Society of Sports History, which was held at the University of Chichester from 22nd to 23rd August.

Cricket Society Chair Peter Hardy said: ‘The ACS is a marvellous organisation dedicated to the enjoyment, interpretation and research of cricket statistics and history. It is populated by some of the most impressive individuals that I have come across in over 50 years involvement in cricket and their commitment to excellence is inspiring. The way the ACS is run and what it stands for is an example to all voluntary organisations in the cricket, and indeed the wider sporting, world. They thoroughly deserve to win the 2024 Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship’.

Ian Jackson Award 2024

Our Ian Jackson Award for Services to Cricket is our 'Spirit of Cricket' award and goes annually to an individual or group who, through their distinguished endeavours and commitment to cricket, have met the mission and spirit of The Cricket Society. 

This year the Ian Jackson Award goes to Jack Russell in recognition of his careers as a cricketer and an artist. He is the first artist to win the award. 

One of cricket’s best loved players, Jack Russell is fondly remembered for his long and successful cricket career from 1981 to 2004 for Gloucestershire (375 first-class matches/431 List A) and for England (54 Tests/40 ODIs). He is acknowledged as the best English wicketkeeper of his generation with 165 Test dismissals and 1320 in first-class cricket. He scored two Test centuries (against Australia and India) and 11 first-class centuries in total with a first-class average of over 30. As nightwatchman he scored 94 on his Test debut against Sri Lanka in 1988. In a remarkable all round display in the Johannesburg Test against South Africa in 1995, Jack took a record eleven dismissals and then scored an epic 29* in 4 and a half hours to save the Test with Mike Atherton. In 1996 he joined the select group of cricketers who have been appointed an MBE for services to cricket. 

Following his playing career Jack has made a highly successful career as a professional artist and is widely acknowledged as the best cricket artist of his generation. The Jack Russell Gallery is situated on the High Street in the picturesque town of Chipping Sodbury in South Gloucestershire. Since 2018 the Chris Beetles Gallery in Ryder Street, London has held an annual exhibition of Jack’s work.

Jack will be presented with the award by guest speaker Richard Thompson, Chair of the ECB, at our Annual Awards Lunch at the Union Jack Club in London on Thursday, 7th November and Jack will be interviewed at the lunch by Cricket Society Chair, Peter Hardy. 

Society AGM

Notice is hereby given that the 76th Annual General Meeting of The Cricket Society will take place at the Civil Service Club (with online attendance via Zoom) on Tuesday 25th October at 5.00pm.

Nominations for election to the Executive Committee should be received by the honorary Secretary prior to 1st September 2022. Each nomination must be seconded and supported by written confirmation that the member nominated will be prepared to serve. 

Any items to be placed on the Agenda of the AGM must be communicated to the Honorary Secretary on or before 1st September 2022. The support, in writing, of twelve or more members of The Society to the aforesaid motion shall accompany such notice. 

An agenda and related papers will be posted on the Society’s website and circulated by email to members in September 2022.

Geoff Levett, Secretary

Derek Underwood

Derek Underwood

It was with great sadness that we at The Cricket Society learnt of the passing away of our Vice-President, Derek Underwood in April 2024. Derek, as well as being one of the great cricketers of the twentieth century for Kent and England, was a great supporter of the Society. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. A celebration of Derek's career featured in the May/June Bulletin, written by Derek Barnard

The Cricket Society & MCC Book of the Year Award 2024

The Tour, written by Simon Wilde, has won the Cricket Society and MCC Book of the Year Award 2024.

Simon’s thematic history of England’s cricket tours since 1877 triumphed at the annual awards ceremony in the Long Room at Lord’s. 

Books about Bazball and England’s white ball cricket revolution were also on the shortlist, as well as a biography of Frank Worrell, for the first time a cricketing play, and a look at international stars playing league cricket.

Simon said of the The Tour: “I’d done a history of the England team previously and when I was doing that book, I realised there was a lot of stuff I was overlooking - what you do on a tour when you’re not playing Australia in a Test match, many weeks of warm-up games and weeks when you go up country. A tour was about more than a few international matches, it was a whole adventure.”                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Chair of Judges Robert Winder said: “How lucky we are to have authors who can describe this changing world of cricket for us. These are six splendid books.”

The Stephen Fay Award 2024 was also made, posthumously, to Tony Cozier for his services to cricket writing and commentary and accepted on the family’s behalf by Vic Marks.

The competition, run by the Cricket Society since 1970 and in partnership with MCC since 2009, is for books nominated by MCC and Cricket Society Members, and is highly regarded by writers and publishers.

The 2023 winner was An Island’s Eleven, The Story of Sri Lankan Cricket by Nicholas Brookes.

The six books on the 2024 shortlist were:

Son of Grace, Frank Worrell A Biography, Vaneisa Baksh, Fairfield Books

Bazball, The Inside Story of a Test Cricket Revolution, Lawrence Booth and Nick Hoult, Bloomsbury

Stumped, Shomit Dutta, Concord Theatricals

Sticky Dogs and Stardust, When the Legends Played in the Leagues, Scott Oliver, Fairfield Books

White Hot, The Inside Story of England Cricket’s Double World Champions, Tim Wigmore and Matt Roller, Bloomsbury

The Tour: The Story of the England Cricket Team Overseas 1877-2022, Simon Wilde, Simon and Schuster

Other books considered for the shortlist included:

How to be a Cricket Fan: A Life in 50 Artefacts from WG to Wisden, Matthew Appleby, Pitch

Disappearing World, Our 18 First-Class Cricket Counties, Scyld Berry, Pitch

Turning Over the Pebbles, Mike Brearley, Constable

Broadly Speaking, Stuart Broad, Hodder and Stoughton

Legacy, My Autobiography, Nick Compton, Allen and Unwin

From Darkness into Light, John Broom and Anthony Condon, Pitch

Footprints, David Foot’s Lifetime of Writing, Stephen Chalke, Charlcombe Books/ Fairfield Books

Balls to Fly, Ricky Ellcock, An Autobiography, Fairfield Books

Cambridge Sport in Fenner’s Hands, Nigel Fenner, self-published by Cambridge Sports Tours

Ashes 2023, A Cricket Classic, Gideon Haigh, Scribe Publications

All-India and Down Under, Peace, Partition and the Game of Cricket, Richard Knott, Pitch

No Picnic, The Historic First MCC Tour of India and Ceylon 1926-27, Jeremy Lonsdale, ACS Publications

Gilly: The Turbulent Life of Roy Gilchrist, Mark Peel, Pitch

Yorkshire Grit: The Life of Ray Illingworth, Mark Peel, Pitch

David Warner, Daring to be Different, Ken Piesse, Wilkinson Publishing

The Last Corinthian, The Cricketing Life of MJK Smith, Mike Thompson, Pitch

One Day at a Time, The History of Limited Overs Cricket in 25 Matches, David Tossell, Fairfield Books

YouTube Interviews

Head over to our YouTube channel to see Peter Hardy interview Vic Marks about the prospects for the 2024 summer of cricket, developments in the England men's team and the new women's centres of excellence. There are many other events on the channel, including recent or historical interviews with David Lloyd, Ted Dexter, and Christopher Sanford amongst others.

Exhibition at Lord's: No Foreign Field

Society Secretary Geoff Levett recently attended a preview of MCC's latest exhibition on the history of global cricket, No Foreign Field, with curator Dr Prashant Kidambi and MCC Chief Librarian Neil Robinson. The exhibition will run for the rest of the year, together with exhibitions of portraits of black cricketers and cricket in the Jewish community at the Museum at Lord's. Click through for a sneak preview of his review for the Society's Bulletin.