The 43rd edition tells you all you need to know about every player from all 18 counties and includes an expanded woman's section to take in the growing number of professional female cricketers as well as the England Women Squad. Over the years, players used to fill in forms for each other with predictable results – local libraries must have forever been running low on the Kama Sutra if the answers to “What’s your favourite book?

Kent’s Darren Stevens is invariably cited by fellow players in The Cricketer’s’ Who’s Who as the bowler they would least like to face. The 160th edition of the most famous sports book in the world – published every year since 1864 – contains some of the world’s finest sports writing. The move was disastrous for Sproat, pushing him into the political wilderness for the next nine years, but did at least mean he could concentrate on CWW. Murtagh and his Middlesex teammates would no doubt have a chuckle at the assortment of perms, combovers and luxuriously meaty sideburns on offer in the early 1980s editions.

The all-rounder touches on the impact of limited-overs cricket, the need to look at the structure of county cricket as well as pay, and the pros and cons of overseas players. And, as ever, there are reports and scorecards for every Test, together with forthright opinion, compelling features and comprehensive records. The professional contracts at the time not stretching to 12 months, all but the most well-off or successful players had to find winter employment. It reflects on the extraordinary life of Shane Warne, who died at the age of 52, with a superb assessment by Gideon Haigh, first-person recollections from several of his Test victims, and a statistical analysis by Andy Zaltzman.

Glamorgan just missed out on promotion last term, and with a newly formed coaching team in place and a world batting star ready for another stint, there is a genuine sense of optimism around the place. When given the opportunity, he also swings hard with the willow in hand, and has often provided helpful runs for his team. We will process your exchange or refunds as soon as possible, but kindly allow up to 10 days from the day we confirm your entitlement to a refund/exchange. Those early volumes contain things that the modern world, cricketing or otherwise, would blanch at now.

While not spinning the ball significantly, Rashid Khan’s leggies have become one of the most effective weapons in white-ball cricket. Dom Sibley lists The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho as his favourite, a book that was written in just two weeks. In 2022, the Christchurch-born all-rounder took over the Test captaincy and transformed England from one of the world’s worst teams to an unstoppable force, reinventing the way the world thinks about the five-day game in the process. As I travel the country I come across an older generation who assure me the game isn’t what it was,” wrote Botham in 1981, a few months before he went on to make that summer his own. Though controversy has been a feature of Shakib’s career, he is a player who will only be truly appreciated once he retires.