READING this year’s Wisden is a bit like listening to The Archers: both are oblivious to the coronavirus, the single factor dominating social life. Jon Hotten got it right in his homage to county cricket: “There’s a glinting uncertainty to the summer of 2020.”

He was referring, though, to cricket’s latest limited-overs incarnation. You fear that The Hundred could be the sport’s equivalent of the pandemic, stirring impassioned resistance to constitutional changes that not only reduce the influence of the counties but also threaten to widen the gulf between rich and poor.

To many this is shameless profiteering. Nick Hoult points out that the English Cricket Board (ECB) could have gone down the franchise route using 20 overs cricket. Surrey had debunked the notion of a shrinking audience for T20, pointing out that 52 per cent of ticket purchasers last year came to watch for the first time, while most of their games sold out. 

However, Hoult quotes the ECB chairman’s lament at not patenting T20 and cashing in. If The Hundred is done properly, it is argued, there will be a product worth a lot of money. Indeed, Deloitte valued a new competition at £28.7 million, six times more than a revamped T20 county competition.

Borrowing from Kierkegaard, cricket risks being tranquillised by the trivial, though Hotten’s concerns might be academic now. There’s a lot of this in the editor’s notes. An education in the classics allows you to reel off Schrodinger’s bat, Tantalus’s fruit and La Sagrada Familia; all lacking from the curriculum at Beaumont Leys comprehensive.

Considering the urgency of the times, the contributions on cricket and the environment should be considered the most pressing. Australia burned in the hottest and driest year of its history. Alongside mass evacuations and declared states of disaster, cricketers wore black armbands at the Sydney Test to honour the emergency services.

Predicted temperatures of 43°C led to New Zealand calling off the first day of a warm-up match, while a Big Bash contest was cancelled after smoke from nearby fires drifted onto the ground.

The World Health Organisation estimates that seven million people die early each year from exposure to air pollution. Compare this to the estimates of deaths in the present human catastrophe and you begin to see the extent of future problems facing humankind.

Five major cricketing cities appear in the eight most polluted centres: Delhi is top, Lahore second, Karachi fourth, with Kolkata and Dhaka bringing up the rear. 

In November 2019, a T20 was scheduled in Delhi against Bangladesh. On the afternoon of the contest the Air Quality Index reached 912 (over 200 is considered unsuitable for outdoor activity). Two hours later it had dropped to 492, but still the umpires proceeded with the match. “It is rarely a good idea to embarrass the BCCI,” noted Sidharth Monga. Crowds, players, workers and police put their health on the line, while two cricketers vomited on the field.

Aside from profiteering and ecological destruction, a review of the past 12 months is predictably dominated by England’s victory at the World Cup: “the most tumultuous few seconds in the history of English cricket” described the editor on the absurdity of a final ball of a super-over. 

That cricket was again in the national sporting consciousness was due, in part, to its availability on free-to-air television. Fast bowler Liam Plunkett suggested that it was “always nice to be on a bigger platform,” before falling in behind the Sky paymasters with thanks on his twitter account for their investment in the sport.

The obvious person of the moment is Ben Stokes, who generously accepted that England’s achievement was a team effort. This theme is expanded on in an article by one-day captain Eoin Morgan who writes of a side of different backgrounds, races and religions, “a team which derived strength from diversity.”

The issue of gender features prominently in the front pages. Emma John regrets that “being patronised or pawed was an occupational hazard for female members of the MCC.” 

Tanya Aldred guides us through the issues of trans women in the female game. She notes that it is a strained topic where discussion is effectively shut down. 

Articles on gender have become more frequent, as have matters relating to mental health. Alastair Cook defends the old-fashioned approach to mental toughness. “It involves wringing the maximum out of your natural ability at the most important moments on the biggest stages.” 

Robin Smith, on the other hand, was so sure of suicide that he felt that any day he could get out of bed for the last time. 

Cricket and politics can appear in the strangest of places. The Jerusalem Post were probably not impressed with the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) condemnation of Israeli war crimes. The embarrassment was theirs, though, when having to apologise for confusing one ICC with another: the International Criminal Court!

We are reminded of cricketers’ aversion to politics in an article marking the 50th anniversary of South Africa’s cancelled tour to the UK. Though an opponent of the tour, Mike Brearley defended the players, noting that businesses were doing very well out of trading with the apartheid state, so why should sport be in the forefront of the campaign? The MCC backed this argument with the claim that building bridges with racially selected sides would be better for multi-racial cricket; their opponents argued that isolation would be more likely to lead to change. Colin Shindler concludes that “history has shown which side was right.”

As always, Wisden provides reflection, not just on a year in the cricketing world, but on a wider social narrative. One wonders whether there will be much cricket to report on next year, and I can predict with some certainty that the coronavirus will dominate its pages, and that Ambridge will fail to win the South Borsetshire League ….. again!