WISDEN Cricketers' Almanack no longer seems to arrive at the start of the season, but this year about three matches in. As always, though, it provides a window into the sport, and its social, economic and political setting as well.

This will be the last Wisden that reports on Jimmy Anderson’s international accomplishments. After a 7,723-day Test career he was informed that his services were no longer required. An article on the role of artificial intelligence apparently determined that his speeds were not conducive to success on Australian wickets.

Being 41 is both arduous and unique for a fast bowler but considering his willingness to go on and the widely held belief that he is still of international class, this suggests a decision tainted with ageism.

Other decisions were more blaringly political. Jay Shah, for instance, is the new chair of the International Cricket Conference (ICC) which makes him the sport’s most influential global figure. Authority is in the blood of the Shahs: his father is the second most powerful politician in India.

Lawrence Booth, Wisden’s editor, writes that 2024 marks the year that cricket abandoned checks and balances, governance for the many and administrative competence. ”A decade or so earlier the talk had been of a Big Three takeover. Now … all hail the Big One.”

This status is certainly reflected in the sport’s finances. The ICC stands to make $3.5bn from their current TV rights deal, meaning that cricket boards will earn more than ever before.

However, this illustrates the inequities with trickle-down economics, for India will take $230m per year from that sum, more than the combined amounts of the next seven countries. This is part of a deal that distributes between 70 and 80 per-cent of ICC funds to the already richest cricket board.

This is the price for keeping the home of the IPL and its huge cricket fan base on-side. It’s also further validation of a Big One. ”When discussions about revamping the financial model began in 2013,” writes Osman Samiuddin, ”India was the elephant in the room. Now it seems cricket is a room inside the elephant.”

The dangers of deregulated market forces continue to impact on the environment. A Met Office report shows the frequency of very wet days has risen by 20 per cent in a decade, while days when temperatures have exceeded 20 degrees have increased by 40 per cent. India’s T20 World Cup-winning side were stranded in Barbados last July due to Hurricane Beryl, the earliest category-five hurricane on record.

Any concerns from the ICC were dispelled with them renewing a four-year sponsorship with Saudi oil goliaths Aramco, one of the largest corporate contributors to greenhouse-gas emissions.

Examinations of social class are evident through studies of the players. Gus Atkinson, for instance, is one of the five cricketers of the year. His first Test was the 188th and final international of the unfortunate Anderson.

Atkinson’s social background belies the stereotype of the proletarian fast bowler. Ancestors on his mother’s side include Thomas Cochrane, the 10th Earl of Dundonald, and commander of the Chilean navy in the war of independence against Spain, while his father’s great-grandfather was the MP Henry Norris, who engineered Arsenal’s move to north London in 1913.

Stephen Chalke’s biography of Brian Close, by contrast, spoke of a captain who reversed protocol by using first names for professionals and surnames for amateurs. Evidence from the Lord’s archive revealed that the higher ups considered Close as a ”3rd or 4th Class Type” unsuited to ambassadorial duties abroad.

Racism features alongside class in David Woodhouse’s review of the year’s books. In my favourite article, space is given to those disadvantaged by skin colour in South Africa such as Vincent Barnes and Khaja Majola who honed their craft in spite of wretched facilities.

The West Indies were exempted from the White Australia border-control policy on their tour down under in 1930-31; though the visitors were just as compromised by their own white captaincy policy.

Cast amongst sentiments of unfairness are welcome moments of wit. Stephen Brenkley notes that England captain Arthur Carr came to dislike two things about the chair of selectors, Pelham Warner — his face!

However, Woodhouse himself provides the funniest line when discussing an encounter with the drunken Bill Edrich who attempted to remove John Arlott’s headphones on a plane: ”This might be a case of the fan hitting the shit!”

Examinations of the different forms of cricket are part of an ongoing existential analysis. These involve speculations on the sums involved in selling The Hundred, part of a wider proliferation of franchise cricket.

There are 53 men and women’s leagues! Of those, The World Cricketers’ Association said that 17 had made late or non-existent payments to players.

For those who prefer the longer form, Ben Bloom considers the central role of the UK’s 70,000 county members. Fifteen of the 18 first-class sides still belong to their members — Durham, Northants and Hampshire being the exceptions.

The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket praised the county structure as it ”distributes power more widely rather than concentrating it in the hands of an organisation’s leaders.” Will Brown, ex-Gloucester chief executive, prefers the existing model because ”members transform it from being a team on a pitch to being a club — a group of people with a shared passion and identity.”

Durham’s chief executive Tim Bostock, though, took the side of the few, condemning members as ”Luddites” who threatened to ”kill the game.” He bemoaned the idea that cricket was ”dictated to by what might only be about 10,000 people.”

The contemporary state of the sport for many of my generation is probably best summed up by former Leicestershire bowler Jonathan Agnew who stepped down as the BBC’s cricket correspondent noting that ”the game’s changed a lot with franchise cricket and so on … I’m not really interested in that.” I know what he means!