Quiz for the MASTER CRICKET BOOK BUFF

[SJS]

I have always felt that the game never attained such heights as in the Thirteenth Century B.C., when one of Nausicaa's maids fumbled what could only have been a scorching cover drive. Admittedly, the game was afflicted by cretins even then: a streaking Odysseus provided the first example of "match abandoned".

 

[archie mac]

Of all the English athletic games, none, perhaps, presents, so fine a scope for bringing into full and constant play the qualities both of mind and body as that of Cricket. A man who is essentially stupid will not make a fine cricketer; neither will he who is essentially non-active. He must be active in all his faculties - he must be active in mind to prepare for every advantage, and active in eye and limb, to avail himself of those advantages. He must be cool tempered, and in the best sense of the word, MANLY; for he must be able to endure fatigue, and to make light of pain; since like all atheltic sports, Cricket is not unattended with danger, resulting from inattention or inexperience; the accidents most comonly attendant upon the players at cricket arising from unwatchfulness or slowness of eye. A short-sighted person is as unfit to become a cricketer, as one deaf would be to discriminate the most delicate gradations and varieties of tone; added to which, added to which he must be in constant jeopardy of serious injury.​

This is a passage from a famous cricket book written by a legend.

This particular bit is from the introduction and not written by the author of the book.

As usual, you have to guess the name of the book, the author and the subject of the book.

Is Cardus involved?

 

[SJS]

Q1. Is Cardus involved?.......NO

 

[archie mac]

Was it written before 1950?

 

[neville cardus]

My brass, limited though it is, is on William Hamilton Maxwell, the Scottish-Irish author of O'Hara and Stories from Waterloo. Please don't keep me waiting; I am (as is my wont when humiliation is eminent) holding my breath.

 

[SJS]

Of all the English athletic games, none, perhaps, presents, so fine a scope for bringing into full and constant play the qualities both of mind and body as that of Cricket. A man who is essentially stupid will not make a fine cricketer; neither will he who is essentially non-active. He must be active in all his faculties - he must be active in mind to prepare for every advantage, and active in eye and limb, to avail himself of those advantages. He must be cool tempered, and in the best sense of the word, MANLY; for he must be able to endure fatigue, and to make light of pain; since like all atheltic sports, Cricket is not unattended with danger, resulting from inattention or inexperience; the accidents most comonly attendant upon the players at cricket arising from unwatchfulness or slowness of eye. A short-sighted person is as unfit to become a cricketer, as one deaf would be to discriminate the most delicate gradations and varieties of tone; added to which, added to which he must be in constant jeopardy of serious injury.​

This is a passage from a famous cricket book written by a legend.

This particular bit is from the introduction and not written by the author of the book.

As usual, you have to guess the name of the book, the author and the subject of the book.

Q1. Is Cardus involved?.......NO

Q2. Was it written before 1950?........YES

Q3. William Hamilton O'Hara ? ........ NO

Sorry for keeping you waiting for a couple of days NC. I had gone up to the Lake District and returned last night.

 

[neville cardus]

No idea, then, because it appears in my copy of O'Hara's The Field Book (published, significantly, in 1833) with no byline.

EDIT: Quite how I am typing this I do not know, for I suffocated more than 24 hours ago.

 

[SJS]

No idea, then, because it appears in my copy of O'Hara's The Field Book (published, significantly, in 1833) with no byline.

EDIT: Quite how I am typing this I do not know, for I suffocated more than 24 hours ago.

Well I can only comment that this wasn't a bad try

 

[neville cardus]

How about Felix?

 

[fredfertang]

I originally thought WG must be involved somewhere but if its pre 1833 I am baffled - that rules out Felix, The various Lillywhites, Wisden, Pycroft and Denison

pre 1833 I can think of Bentley, Britcher and Epps but little or no narrative in their work.

That leaves Nyren and Boxall

Anywhere near?

 

[neville cardus]

I originally thought WG must be involved somewhere but if its pre 1833 I am baffled - that rules out Felix

Too true: Felix on the Bat was an 1840s publication.

That leaves Nyren

As the The Field Book makes brief reference to The Young Cricketer's Tutor, he seems the most likely.

 

[fredfertang]

Indeed - must confess I was thinking of "The Cricketers of my Time" but that is a better suggestion

 

[SJS]

How about Felix?

No

 

[SJS]

I originally thought WG must be involved somewhere but if its pre 1833 I am baffled - that rules out Felix, The various Lillywhites, Wisden, Pycroft and Denison

pre 1833 I can think of Bentley, Britcher and Epps but little or no narrative in their work.

That leaves Nyren and Boxall

Anywhere near?

The writer of the book is Nyren. So you have that correct.

That bit I quoted was from the introduction to the book and was by C.C.C. (Charles Cowden Clarke).

 

[SJS]

Too true: Felix on the Bat was an 1840s publication.



As the The Field Book makes brief reference to The Young Cricketer's Tutor, he seems the most likely.

Thats right.

The Young Cricketer's Tutour
John Nyren
1833​

 

[neville cardus]

My turn, presumably:

"I should have hit the perisher!" (or, according to another version, "I should have hit the flaming thing!")

Who said this and of what was he speaking?

 

[fredfertang]

Thats a moving target if ever there was one - has any man who has wielded the willow in anger not uttered one or other of those ?

 

[neville cardus]

Thats a moving target if ever there was one - has any man who has wielded the willow in anger not uttered one or other of those ?

Ah, but this was a decidedly famous -- nay, legendary -- instance.

 

[stumpski]

Complete stab in the dark - first thing that comes to mind is Cliff Gladwin's famous leg-bye off the last ball to win a Test against South Africa. No idea what book that would've come from though.

 

[SJS]

My turn, presumably:

"I should have hit the perisher!" (or, according to another version, "I should have hit the flaming thing!")

Who said this and of what was he speaking?

You have to give a big, continuous quote (150-200 words) from the book, Rodney.