County Cricket Matters Issue 25

Martin Chandler | 8:21am GMT 07 December 2025

Published: 2025
Pages: 38
Author: Chave, Annie (Editor)
Publisher: County Cricket Matters
Rating: 5 stars

As always the twenty-fifth issue of County Cricket Matters begins with an interview by Annie. All who have taken an in interest in CCM over the years will know that besides her deep connection with cricket Annie has also been involved in the theatre and her partner in conversation on this occasion is a man from that world, actor and director Sam West, the elder son of Timothy West and Prunella Scales.

There are numerous websites that will tell you about West’s professional life, but not his passion for cricket, something that can be measured easily enough by the fact that his meeting with Annie took place at Lord’s* in September during the ODI between England and South Africa. All that you need to know about West is reflected by the fact that he arrived with his scorebook and, between questions, scored the match. In truth Annie could doubtless produce a book reflecting the totality of their conversation over the day, and I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if one day she did, but even these edited highlights of their conversation are a delight to read.

Turning to the county game entirely fittingly the front cover of CCM25 is graced by an image of Notts skipper Haseeb Hameed holding the County Championship trophy that, unexpectedly to many, his side lifted from under Surrey’s noses a couple of weeks after Annie’s meet up with Sam West.

Ever since I watched Hameed compile a superb 89 at Lord’s in 2016 I have been a great admirer of a man whose subsequent rise, fall and second coming I have watched with huge interest. Now is not the time or place to express views as to what went wrong at Old Trafford but, like most Lancastrians, I have been delighted to see Hameed’s confidence rebuilt at Trent Bridge and I much enjoyed Sharmila Meadows article about him.

County cricket features also in a piece by Richard Edwards. The Hawk is a pay site dedicated to Hampshire cricket and the mission statement of which is, not unnaturally, the subject matter of his writing. Looking at what I can of the site it certainly sounds like an excellent idea and I would suggest that an annual subscription would be the perfect gift for any Hampshire supporter.

I always enjoy David Woodhouse’s contributions to CCM, until now on the subject of various classics of cricket literature. His essay this time is very different as, Worcestershire supporter that he is, he indulges in the exercise that all county cricket lovers enjoy by selecting his all time eleven  from those who have appeared for the county and, to add a bit of depth, a second eleven and an eleven of personal favourites.

The problem with such discussions is what eligibility criteria you use. Personally I always disregard overseas players, but Woodhouse takes the thoroughly sensible position to set that at 100 First Class appearances for the county. When, as I often do, I ponder the same exercise for Lancashire I shall have to have a rethink now that Ted McDonald, Clive Lloyd and Farokh Engineer have become available.

And with Woodhouse doing something different for once there is not really anything avowedly bibliographical in CCM25, although Stephen Baldwin, John Wisden’s biographer, does contribute an essay on the man whose iconic almanack will appear for the 163rd time in April 2026. The subject of his writing is not the almanack however, rather Wisden’s role in establishing the Cricketers’ Fund Friendly Society.

But there is a sort of a book review, from Alex Raynor, in a piece titled Cricket as Therapy. Based on what he says Raynor must be around 60 and, unsurprisingly, has always been a cricket lover. Like many he has also suffered from mental health problems, and largely done so in silence. And then he read Marcus Tresothick’s autobiography, and that seems to have proved cathartic, and has produced a thought provoking piece of writing.

David Gill’s contribution to CCM 25 springs forth from Victorian times. He chooses to look at the role of the Oval in the sport of that era, and not just in cricket but in soccer and Rugby Union as well. All that was coordinated by Charles Alcock, an undistinguished cricketer with just a single runless and wicketless First Class appearance to his name, but he was an administrator who played a huge role in shaping the development of all three sports.

If there is nothing in CCM 25 that is aimed at we bibliophiles there is still an interesting look at one aspect of the memorabilia industry. Michael Tarr is an artist who has been commissioned on a number of occasions to produce sets of cigarette card sized paintings of cricketers for the collectibles market. They aren’t, I must confess, quite my cup of tea, but I certainly enjoyed reading about them.

Another aspect of memorabilia collecting relates to autographs. These are something else that don’t greatly attract me (unless they are attached to books, pamphlets or other items of general cricketing ephemera of course), but Jeremy Lonsdale’s article on the history of the subject is fascinating. The collecting of signatures, as Jeremy records, is by no means the bane of players’ lives in the way it once was. There are a few reasons for this, the one I noted that Jeremy is far too polite to mention being the unrecognisable and illegible doodles that, for many modern players, are put forward as signatures.

One of the vintage eras for autograph collecting was in the aftermath of the return of peace after the end of the Second World War. It was a few years after that that Michael Richardson was born, but his reader could be forgiven for think otherwise after reading Play Resumed, his look back to the 1946 summer. For someone who wasn’t actually there he certainly does a fine job of recreating the dawning of a new age.

And that is that for another three months, that delay between issues and the fact that I have now been forced to conclude that The Void’s crossword is beyond my intellectual capacity being the only disappointments in CCM25, and neither of those alter the fact that once again it is a five star read.

*I wouldn’t put a very large bet on it but I suspect that having, as cricket tragic tend to do, taken a quick trawl through Cricketarchive, that West actually played at the home of cricket once, in 2009, for the Lord’s Taverners against the well known theatrical side, Gaieties.