“The hardest hitting reviewer since Rowland Bowen”
Richard Streeton on The Cricket Statistician—Part III
It is appropriate, as I continue my review of The Cricket Statistician, to turn next to Robert Brooke’s work. Not only because he was a co-founder of the ACS, and edited the first 52 issues of the journal from 1973 to late 1985, but also because he must have contributed more words to its pages than anyone else. From the earliest days of ACS, he tackled many different subjects, always with great authority. After relinquishing the editorship he concentrated his efforts almost exclusively on book reviews, which to my mind have regularly provided some of the best reading throughout the journal’s existence.
A variety of work as a virtually full-time professional cricket statistician and writer has consistently emphasised the depth of his cricket knowledge. Brooke introduced book reviewing—always a sensitive subject—to the journal gradually over the years, informing readers in Issue No. 3 that while there were no plans to review books, this would not preclude him from mentioning them from time to time. He briefly commented on a handful of items, giving a foretaste of the acerbity which has always marked his style when he described Bill Andrews’ The Hand That Bowled Bradman as “refreshingly different from the rubbish usually appearing in the guise of cricketing autobiographies.” A gap followed before Fred Trueman’s Ball of Fire received both barrels in Issue No. 15, with the suggestion that it should have been called “Balls & Ire.”
Slowly his reputation as the hardest-hitting reviewer since Rowland Bowen was established. Probably the most scathing piece he ever wrote was an attack on two professional university historians. It was clearly triggered by the patronising approach of one towards amateur historians—surely an unforgivable form of academic snobbery. Brooke’s rebuttal appeared in a separate article outside the book-review section on page 5 of Issue No. 48.
Brooke’s approach to reviewing has never been to everyone’s taste. I have personal knowledge, in fact, of a handful of people who believe he has been unfair, and who refuse to have anything to do with the ACS because of what he has written. Myself? I defend Brooke, possibly because my hide has emerged well roasted after a lifetime in the Fleet Street kitchen. I believe that if publishers and authors submit a book for review, they have to accept what is written without complaint, provided always it is factually correct. Redress is available through a printed correction—or even the courts if any illegal frontiers have been crossed.
More than once, in print, Brooke outlined his approach to his task, which he basically saw as telling people whether the book as priced was worth buying. In that he has always succeeded. And surely he has been right to abhor factual inaccuracies, his pet peeve. In later years the style, though still trenchant if necessary, matured and became a shade less abrasive. Mind you, he always had a more compassionate streak than many realised. Read him on Percy Chapman’s drinking in the review of David Lemmon’s biography in Issue No. 50.
Finally, do not forget that book reviewing in the close-knit world of cricket has always been an incestuous business. As a result far too many reviews in other cricket magazines are bland to a fault. The fact that a great many cricket books have been poor ones has been ignored too often—but, thankfully, seldom by Brooke.
This article is adapted from the version which first appeared in the hundredth edition of The Cricket Statistician, published in Winter 1997. To join the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, and subscribe to the journal, please visit our website: