The Nightwatchman

SAMPLE EDITION SUMMER30 2020 THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY SAMPLER THE NIGHTWATCHMAN THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY ISSUE 30 – SUMMER 2020 introduces issue 30 of the Nightwatchman Cricket’s past has been enriched by great writing and Wisden is making sure its future Tanya Aldred will be too. The Nightwatchman is a quarterly collection of essays and long-form articles and Eleanor Oldroyd soars to the choral cricketing heavens is available in print and e-book formats. Jonathan Wilson on memory and love Co-edited by Anjali Doshi and Tanya Aldred, with Matt Thacker as managing editor, The Nightwatchman features an array of authors from around the world, writing beautifully and Paul Edwards praises the knights of the West Country at length about the game and its myriad offshoots. Contributors are given free rein over subject matter and length, escaping the pressures of next-day deadlines and the despair David Owen recalls Northamptonshire’s field of dreams of cramming heart and soul into a few paragraphs. Siddhartha Vaidyanathan gives his version of England’s 1992–93 tour of India There are several different ways to get hold of and enjoy The Nightwatchman. You can subscribe to the print version and get a free digital copy for when you’re travelling light. Mumbai’s maidans – the photographs of Emma Levine If you don’t have enough room on your book case, you can always take out a digital-only on a private affair in the Upper Edrich Stand subscription. Or if you’d just like to buy a single issue – in print, digital or both – you can Charlie Burgess do that too. Take a look at the options below and decide which is best for you. Snehal Pradhan talks to the South African couple whose love is frowned upon Dave Edmundson paints Jimmy the younger SUMMER30 2020 SPRING5 2014 SPRING5 2014SPRING5 2014 S.J.Litherland Unbound Full subscription Digital subscription NightwatchmanNightwatchmanNightwatchman THE WISDENTHE WISDEN CRICKET CRICKET QUARTERLY QUARTERLY Annual e-book only THE WISDEN CRICKETTHE QUARTERLY WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY Annual print Nightwatchman Nicholas Brookes on Jardine’s Ceylonese disgrace subscription (with subscription free e-book versions) £15 Photo special – the Wisden–MCC photographs of the year £29.95 (+P&P) Click to Buy Click to Buy Ben Lerwill asks for a thousand autographs David Tossell searches for Lawrence Rowe James Wallace finds solace in cricket Chris McMillan follows a multi-cultural thread SUMMER30 2020 AUTUMN27 2019 Digital single copy THE Single copy THE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY Single issue Single issue (with (e-book only) free with free £4 e-book version) £10 (+P&P) Click to Buy Click to Buy THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET FEATURE TITLE THE NIGHTWATCHMAN liturgical life became imprinted on my that the towering redevelopment of the consciousness; the words and tunes of stands hadn’t obscured the iconic view hymns, the precise intonation required of St Peter’s Cathedral. for psalm-singing, the ability not to shuffle and fidget during duller parts of Lord’s, of course, is known by some the service. as the “Cathedral of Cricket”, the outfield as “the hallowed turf”. You’d The cricket also tested my powers of imagine that walking beneath the concentration. My sporting preferences chandeliers of the Long Room for the in my early teens were for football, first time wouldn’t have intimidated athletics and rugby – Grandstand took a young Alastair Cook, who’d spent over Saturday afternoon in the same his formative years performing under A COVER DRIVE IN E-FLAT way that the John Player League did on the magnificent Christopher Wren Sunday – and cricket, even the 40-over dome of St Paul’s. While all he and his Eleanor Oldroyd sings a hymn to cricket version, seemed as interminable as one brothers wanted to do was play sport, of my dad’s sermons. his musically minded parents were also keen for them to sing, so a deal was Gradually, though, inspired by the feats done in which tennis, badminton and It happens at the start of every day of equally indomitable with bat in hand of the great players of the time – the likes cricket went alongside choir practice every England Test match, home and and angelic in a surplice and ruff. of Viv Richards, Ian Botham and Joel on a Friday night. abroad. The Barmy Army stand to sing Garner in that Somerset title-winning a work by one of the pre-eminent choral But how many other cricketing team of 1979 – I realised that cricket “Eventually I was spotted by the composers of the late 19th and early choristers, or choral-singing cricket- was a sport superior to all others (and choirmaster who said I should audition 20th centuries, a man who influenced lovers, are out there? As someone who that actually my dad’s sermons were for London choir schools,” Cook Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Holst, and defines myself as the latter, I am sure better, shorter and definitely funnier explained in a 2019 interview with BBC who went on to become head of the there are plenty, although my personal than most). If there was a danger of Radio 3. “At seven [years old], you Royal College of Music. twin passions took a while to develop. a clash between Evensong and the don’t know what that is, but it is a day Sunday League, Dad would generally off school. Before you know it, you get We’re talking, of course, about Growing up in the 1970s in a vicarage find a compliant curate, or member of offered a place; it couldn’t be further “Jerusalem”. Whether the Barmies in South Shropshire, summer Sundays the resident retired clergy, to take over from what I was used to.” might consider taking on one of Sir meant three things: church, my mum’s the service. Hubert Parry’s other works – “I Was roast potatoes and John Player League The relentless round of practising and Glad”, perhaps, or “Blest Pair of Sirens” cricket on the TV. • • • performing – daily Choral Evensong, – is stretching it a bit, unless Jimmy plus sung Mattins and Eucharist on Anderson and Stuart Broad were Church attendance in the morning My cricket-watching outings were Sunday, plus special services, plus having a particularly good day. was compulsory, largely for childcare to Worcester, our nearest first-class choir tours – is a tough regime for an reasons. My dad, Vicar of Cleobury ground, or Canterbury, near my adult, let alone a small boy, but it was Sir Alastair Cook will probably have Mortimer, had to be there. Mum was grandparents. And I’m sure it’s not a character-forming for the young Cook. sung all three pieces, as well as many also required to be there, as the coincidence that they, as so many of the others by Parry, Stanford, Howells supportive vicar’s wife; she had her most evocative locations – like Taunton, “It was a brutal regime in one sense, and other giants of the British choral own professional life as a modern where Beefy, Viv and Big Bird thrilled but I had experiences you would never tradition. As a former choir boy languages teacher but there would the Somerset faithful – have a close normally have. I sang in the VE Day at St Paul’s Cathedral, England’s have been much tutting in the association with, or even a backdrop of, 50th anniversary celebration, the first greatest Test run-scorer is the most congregation if she hadn’t taken a pew. churches or cathedrals. My bucket-list night of the Proms a few times. I went distinguished proponent of the cricket- So my two brothers and I, too young to ground was the Adelaide Oval. Paying to Brazil on choir tour. Singing in St choir crossover. It’s hard to think of be left home alone, were co-opted to my first pilgrimage there, during the Paul’s Cathedral had a major impact anyone else who has managed to look join the choir. Gradually the rhythms of 2017–18 Ashes, it was a relief to discover on my life; as a result I went to Bedford THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 5 SAMPLER THE NIGHTWATCHMAN School on a music scholarship, which Collingwood sees similarities in the “The ground was about a mile down the choral pun on the anthem “Faire Is The gave me access to the facilities at dynamic of choirs and cricket teams. road from King’s Chapel,” says Stobbs. Heaven” by William Henry Harris. (The Bedford for cricket.” “In a choir you are performing as part “We batted first. I’d never scored a original team name riffed on Bainton’s of a group for much of the time; but fifty and was not out just before tea. “And I saw a New Heaven” but, says Cook believes the chorister life gave then there will be moments when you My mate, who was captain, was also a Stobbs, “Faire is a far better name, and him a headstart on his cricketing might have a solo, and in that moment chorister and I had to persuade him to incidentally a better anthem.”) contemporaries and set him up for a you come to the fore and become the let us carry on batting after the break. professional life of crease-occupation. centre of attention.” Then we absolutely had to leg it; we Faire’s star player in recent seasons declared, and dashed to sing Wesley in has been professional tenor and fellow “It taught me discipline, the art of There is an element of tribalism, too, E or something like that.” former King’s man Ruairi Bowen, concentration, of performing in front of between the great cathedrals.

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