County Cricket Matters Issue 27

Martin Chandler | 7:40am BST 07 June 2026

Published: 2026
Pages: 38
Author: Chave, Annie (Editor)
Publisher: County Cricket Matters
Rating: 5 stars

It is well over six years now since those of us who love county cricket were treated to the first issue of County Cricket Matters. Since then, every three months without fail, Annie Chave and her team have made sure that we all know that we are not a dying breed, and they also give us all a high quality collection of fine writing.

Last time out, CCM26, troubled me somewhat in that Annie’s editorial seemed to me to be worryingly pessimistic. It is good to read this time that, a couple of months of decent weather and half a dozen enthralling rounds of County Championship cricket later, she seems rather more upbeat.

And further rays of sunshine have been provided by her interview in CCM27, on this occasion with England’s Barbadian born fast bowler of the mid and late 1980s, Gladstone Small. You really cannot fault Annie’s choice of interviewees and with ‘Gladys’ she has unearthed someone else whose life inside and outside the game has been such that an autobiography would be a welcome addition to the game’s literature.

As a lifelong bibliophile one of the aspects of CCM I particularly value is the number of articles that appear around the subjects of books and bookishness and CCM27 is no exception to that. First of all Jon Hotten contributes what amounts to an introduction to his excellent new book, Vinciness, a tribute to the former Hampshire and England batsman James Vince and, at the same time, not about him at all. If that doesn’t make sense, and I appreciate that at first blush it doesn’t, read the book and you will understand what I mean.

Moving on to something else in respect of which my comments might seem to be a contradiction in terms is Rod Edmond’s article, Women Writers and Cricket Fiction. Over the years I have attempted to read several books that would come under the general heading of cricket fiction. It is not a genre I particularly enjoy and I have seldom got very far with any of them. That doesn’t however mean that the concept itself is not something I find interesting, and if I don’t enjoy the novels themselves I am certainly keen to understand the views of those who do take the subject and its history seriously. Edmond has just published a book on the subject, and the short taster here on the work of female writers deals exclusively with an aspect of cricket writing that was completely new to me.

Another writer who takes the opportunity to showcase his new book is Peter Cox, in 125 Summers. This is a two volume book that looks at the history of the County Championship between its inception as an organised tournament in 1890 and the present day. It is a book I did know about although my first thought was to wonder how it could hope to compete with Stephen Chalke’s masterly Summer’s Crown. The answer to that was, I suppose, obvious in that that isn’t really what it seeks to do. It sounds as if the book is one that identifies trends by looking at the game’s statistics in new ways. When it comes to stats I have been known to be a bit of a curmudgeon, and to express the view that if a method of statistical analysis was worth doing then Ashley-Cooper would have come up with it a century ago, but having said that Cox’s methods do sound interesting and he has novel ideas for the future of county cricket which, initially, struck me as bonkers but which, as the idea settles in my head, I begin to see have some merit.

As I write this review I am holed up in a small village in central France, my first venture outside the UK since the still gaping self-inflicted wound that we call Brexit. It therefore seems entirely appropriate that CCM contains Barney Spender’s article, Vive Le Cricket which, in very broad terms, discusses the game’s attempt to gain a toehold across the channel something which, absent a significant South Asian diaspora here seems to me to be a big ask, even if some have espoused a theory that the game was born here. ‘Tis interesting stuff though, although I have to report that I have seen nothing in my time here that suggests the game has ever been played in these parts. I have however done my bit and pointed my hosts in the direction of a number of sites that would make excellent cricket grounds and thereby improve the appearance of their already attractive countryside.

CCM27 wouldn’t be CCM without someone writing about the game from an unusual angle and the man responsible for that on this occasion is Deputy Editor Jeremy Lonsdale. Noises Off (and On) is an excellent title for a piece that looks at the concept of the noise made by the game’s spectators ranging from the quiet and dignified ripple of applause during the County Championship, to the gladiatorial cauldron of Australian crowds screaming ‘kill, kill, kill’ at Dennis Lillee, the carnival atmosphere of modern franchise matches and all points in between. On Franchise cricket CCM27 also contains Jim Thompson’s The IPL: How is That Worth Watching – I suppose there might be one or two subscribers to CCM that won’t be totally in agreement with him, but there will not be many.

History is, of course, featured in CCM. Ian Harris writes of happy memories of festival cricket generally and of Bath in particular. Richard Isaacs looks back fondly at Hampshire’s pre Rose Bowl home at Northlands Road in Southampton and Michael Richardson, in a piece I particularly enjoyed, goes back to the English summer of 1958, a particularly damp one.

Although in some ways it is rather invidious to so I do occasionally like to nominate a favourite feature in an individual issue of CCM and CCM27 does have, for me anyway, a stand out. Headingley, the Other Mike Smith and Me by Alan Robertshaw is a wonderfully evocative piece of writing combining some cricket history, the story of Robertshaw’s involvement with the county game since childhood and, for those who like that sort of thing, a story of the cricketing miscarriage of justice that befell Gloucestershire seamer Mike Smith in his solitary Test appearance, at Headingley in the 1997 Ashes.

And then there is the crossword which I would suggest is more devilish than ever. I gazed at it for 20 minutes with getting a single answer in which I have any confidence. I must remember this time to check out the CCM website when the answers appear in the hope that may give me some pointers for the future.