The Playfair Book Of Test Cricket - Volume II 1946-1953

Cricket is a remarkable game. It can occupy five entire days, produce hundreds of pages of statistics, inspire fierce international rivalries and still end with neither side having won. To the uninitiated, this may appear a questionable use of everybody’s time. To the devoted cricket enthusiast, however, it represents one of civilisation’s highest achievements, particularly if someone has remembered to bring the sandwiches.

The Playfair Book of Test Cricket – Volume II: 1946–1953 (1953), compiled by Roy Webber and published by Playfair Books, is a splendid statistical journey through an extraordinary period in international cricket. Covering the years immediately following the Second World War, it records the performances, matches and achievements of an era when Test cricket was re-establishing itself after years of global conflict, and when the prospect of spending several afternoons watching men in white flannels seemed positively therapeutic.

The period was rich in cricketing drama. England, Australia, the West Indies, India, Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand contributed to a developing international game, while legendary players established records, reputations and, occasionally, the sort of batting averages that caused opposing bowlers to contemplate alternative employment.

This was the era of Don Bradman’s extraordinary farewell to Test cricket, the formidable Australian teams of the late 1940s, the emergence of new cricketing powers and England’s celebrated recovery of the Ashes in 1953. The scorecards tell their own stories of triumph, collapse, stubborn resistance and those magnificent occasions when a batsman occupied the crease for several hours while apparently achieving very little beyond irritating the opposition.

Roy Webber, one of cricket’s most respected statisticians and historians, brings order to this glorious accumulation of runs, wickets, partnerships and results. His meticulous approach provides a valuable record of a period when cricket statistics were compiled without computers, spreadsheets or the comforting possibility of blaming a software error.

For the enthusiast, the figures are far more than columns of numbers. Every innings, dismissal and bowling analysis represents a fragment of sporting history, preserving achievements that might otherwise disappear into the unreliable memories of elderly spectators who insist that nobody has bowled properly since 1948.

This particular copy has acquired an especially appealing personal dimension. It includes some newspaper clippings and handwritten notes, suggesting that a previous owner was not content merely to possess the official record but felt compelled to contribute to cricketing history personally. These additions offer an intriguing glimpse into the habits of an earlier enthusiast and give the volume a character that a pristine modern reprint could never quite reproduce.

Condition: Good. This original 1953 edition shows ordinary signs of age, reading and handling, but remains an attractive historical volume. The accompanying newspaper clippings and notes add considerable charm, especially for collectors who appreciate books with evidence of genuine sporting enthusiasm.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where we recognise that cricket is not merely a game but a lifelong commitment to statistics, nostalgia and explaining to bewildered relatives why a draw can constitute a magnificent achievement.

No ISBN, naturally. In 1953, cricket books were apparently considered sufficiently identifiable by their titles, although one suspects Roy Webber would have welcomed another number to catalogue.

An excellent vintage find for cricket historians, collectors of Playfair publications and anyone who believes that a good scorecard can be every bit as dramatic as a novel, provided one understands what all the numbers mean.

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