The Nightwatchman Is a Quarterly Collection of Essays and Long-Form Articles Debuting in March 2013 and Available in Print and E-Book Formats
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SAMPLE EDITION SPRING1 2013 THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY SAMPLER THE NightwatchmanTHE WISDEN CRICKET QUARTERLY Cricket’s past is enriched by great writing and Wisden is making sure its future is too. The Nightwatchman is a quarterly collection of essays and long-form articles debuting in March 2013 and available in print and e-book formats. Co-edited by Osman Samiuddin and Tanya Aldred, The Nightwatchman features an array of authors from around the world, writing beautifully and 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 of cramming heart and soul into a few paragraphs. There are a few 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. If you don’t have enough room on your book case, you can always take out a digital-only subscription. Or if you’d just like to buy a single issue – in print, digital or both – you can do that too. Take a look at the options below and decide which is best for you. Full subscription Annual print Digital subscription subscription (with Annual e-book only free e-book versions) subscription £27 (+P&P) £9 Click to Buy Click to Buy Single copy Single issue (with Digital single copy free with free Single issue e-book version) (e-book only) £9 (+P&P) £3 Click to Buy Click to Buy THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET THE NIGHTWATCHMAN Issue 1, out in early March, will feature: Vaneiza Baksh pondering a decade of decline in West Indies cricket Rob Steen charting Wally Hammond’s Bradman complex James Holland tracking down the spot on which Hedley Verity was killed in World War II Patrick Neate reflecting on the game as a revealer of character Tanya Aldred going on a very personal Fred Trueman adventure Osman Samiuddin discovering why it sometimes all just clicks for Pakistan Rob Smyth delighting in the perverse joy of England batting collapses Siddhartha Vaidyanathan recalling a more innocent age when Sachin’s bat was sponsor-free Jon Hotten waxing lyrical about nightwatchmen Dileep Premachandran chronicling India’s now departed Golden Age Christian Ryan delving into Shiv Chanderpaul’s unique genius Bob Kaplan musing on why we play Firdose Moonda reporting on the current state of cricket in South Africa Tom Holland imagining KP as Achilles Amol Rajan regretting the demise of medium pace spinners Andy Wilson showing it’s possible to combine cricket and birdwatching Jarrod Kimber marvelling at the Michael Clarke makeover Anand Vasu investigating the lot of a modern-day cricketer Daniel Norcross going in search of Major NH Bennett, Surrey’s least successful captain of all time On the following pages you’ll find an article by Christian Ryan reflecting on the genius of Chanderpaul, as well as extracts from 18 more pieces from the first edition. CHRISTIAN RYAN GONE CRABBING Pleasure slices open the fan in one of three outside off stump, only this time Chanders ways. Your team winning, a thrilling and/or does a lightning feet-off-the-ground skip close match, and that frozen moment of sideways followed by a slow backward someone doing something with a blissful, slide – so leisurely it’s almost taunting – of hyper-natural radiance – that’s pleasure. his down-tilting left leg, on to which his The third pleasure is loosely termed style. body then sinks, his front foot acting as Because one player’s failed attempt at the anchor, the pivot, while his left knee style can dent his ten annoyed team- takes his body weight and his bat becomes mates’ hopes of winning, this third pleasure a sort of high-tech egg-lifter, the bat-face is sometimes at cross-purposes with the pointing up, not side-on, when it intercepts first pleasure. Pleasure is a noun almost no the ball and his wrists tensing then relaxing one hooked up to a near-daily TV drip feed as they – and if we’re to call this a sweep of hit-and-giggle has ever heard used in shot let’s all take to our coaching manuals conjunction with Shivnarine Chanderpaul. with cigarette lighters right now – caress The word they hear used is crab. the ball deftly round the corner and up, up. And David Gower, who once was to The Providence Stadium cricket pitch looks batting artistry what Emmanuelle Béart is a straw-coloured place of peace in a field of to the smouldering lazy-gaze cross a late- lushest green, a half-hour’s ride from sub- night Parisian jazz club, is slow-motion sea-level Georgetown, on Chanderpaul’s commentating – “Well, he’s, uhhh … played home island of Guyana. It’s the first one- that … with extraordinary flair.” And up, up dayer in a soon-to-be-forgotten series it keeps going. Monitoring the ball’s arc on of five, West Indies playing England, and our screens, our eyes can see sugarcane right on 5:00 on a Friday afternoon, 20 fields, and that looks like savannah country March 2009, Chanders welcomes a ball over there, till finally the ball peaks, and outside his off stump with a calming tap dips, bouncing to the right of a wheeled straight to a fielder. Twenty minutes later carry-case belonging to one of three men, he receives a ball in a good-as-identical each of the men swaying away, like poplars, spot. We’re late in the run-chase. This ball for fear of impalement, as the ball spirals is coming at 82.9 mph, pitching about past them and crashes into a wall beneath three-quarter-length and it is, I repeat, a maroon staircase. The innocent bowler, THE NIGHTWATCHMAN Steve Harmison, who’s been watching westwards when it is supposed to be facing as well, blows a short (disbelieving, I’m south, and Chanders’ bat, which appears guessing) puff of wind through his bearded to be eagerly anticipating the square-leg lips. Not one of the nearby thousands umpire’s next delivery. Disconcerting to looking on from a grassy mound is still bowl at; funny-looking on TV. Yet by the time sitting. In the grandstand, a black boy in the ball’s arrived and he’s hitting it, normal a red mobile-phone company T-shirt is transmission has resumed, all appendages dancing an uncontrollable jig, alone. His and accoutrements present and correct, eyes are shut but the eyeballs, you can tell, courtesy of a neither airborne nor strictly are moonwalking underneath. earthbound step-hover-squirm manoeuvre. Watching Chanders bat invites the fan, in a Just like a crab, says the critic to the fan. strange way, to peer inside their own self, and ask questions. Like: why play this shot, Chanders explains it like this – he why not that? And, is there a place for style developed his way of batting in Unity in cricket? Village, a fishing town, where his father Kemraj, nickname of ‘Cow-Fly’, was Two more Chanderpaul scenes … sometimes away for days, at work, on a boat, fishing for bottlefish, for crab. The Antigua: he’s 19, short sleeves and a boy Chanders began cricket when he was helmet, armguard on, Angus Fraser comes eight, though cricket was beseeching clumping in over the wicket and Chanders him nine years before that. “When he drives him left of mid-on. in his mother’s belly,” Kemraj once said, “she bowl to me.” With balls made of Dhaka: late afternoon, last November, concrete or rubber, they practised on the Chanders is helmeted and short-sleeved, community hall’s hard floor for bounce he’s 38 years old, 72 not out, armguard on, and on the sand beside the ocean’s Rubel Hossain bowls around the wicket edge for pace. Villagers joined in. Often and Chanders drives to mid-on’s right. their challenge was to hit the boy. “No crying here,” Kemraj would say. Thus did Watch them slow. Wrists like horse muscle Chanders’ makeshift floating fortress of a – the key both times. Freeze the footage batting stance allegedly evolve. It enabled two frames after impact. Chanders’ feet him, Chanders has explained, to hurry his have landed way outside off stump, left bat and hands in front of his face in self- foot twisting behind right foot … head protection – an amazing story, romantic, position, bat angle, elbow pointiness … same the sort of set piece the sportswriter can perfect finish. It is the getting there that has pull out three times, five even, over and changed. As young Rubel gallops in, his over anew, a fresh and touching lilt to it footsteps leaving no imprint on the hard for every occasion. Crab man grooms imitation space-turf of Bangladesh’s Shere crab boy. Bangla National Stadium, Chanders’ own feet and toes are 90 degrees forward of Facts are that by 19, and all through his every published recommendation of where promising maiden series against England, they should be. Ninety degrees, do the Chanders’ batting stance resembled a maths: they are twinkling straight at Rubel. kindergarten child’s back-to-front “7”. That This has one far-reaching repercussion is, his stance was the stance of the normal (which we’ll get to: it’s big) plus various left-hand batsman. Nearly, anyway: on smaller spin-off oddities, these including debut in Georgetown, March 1994, he had Chanders’ right shoulder, which is aiming a mild hunchback aura and his feet were THENIGHTWATCHMAN.NET 5 GONE CRABBING tipping 20 degrees forward of normal.