A Tingling Catch in Wisden Cricketer

The following brief review of A Tingling Catch (by the books editor) appeared in The Wisden Cricketer, UK, April 2011, p. 95. The Wisden Cricketer is the ‘world’s No. 1 cricket magazine’ and is published monthly. It’s great to have a mention:

IN BRIEF

A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009 edited by Mark Pirie (HeadworX, pb, 189pp)

Natural events have put New Zealand’s sporting fortunes into perspective but in purely cricket terms New Zealand have had a rough time recently, losing
4-0 to Bangladesh and 5-0 to India in successive one-day series. Mark Pirie’s anthology is therefore timely to soothe those sores. Most of the verses are composed by some of the country’s literary names. Then there is Colin Croft’s ‘When Hadlee Bowls the Ball’, on West Indies’ 1979-80 tour: ‘Don’t want to play with those flamin’ Kiwis / Don’t want to play them in a Test, / Don’t want to play with those flamin’ Kiwis / Before they came along we was the best!’ That’s more like it, though it is worth noting West Indies did not lose another Test series for 15 years.

I should note here in case there’s any confusion that the song mentioned by 'Colin Croft' (the West Indies fast bowler) is by ‘Colin Croft and the Maiden Overs’, a satirical group at the time, who penned the song. The lyrics to the song were first published by Sir Richard Hadlee in his collection Hadlee's Humour (1982).

The Wisden Cricketer website has recently been revamped and is now called The Cricketer: 'the new number one website for all supporters of English cricket'. The website includes, among other things, feature articles from The Wisden Cricketer (click on the heading Magazine). It's well worth following.