NZ Almanack captures season perfectly

The 2003 New Zealand Cricket Almanack, edited by Francis Payne and Ian Smith. Published by Hodder Moa Beckett.

The 2003 Almanack captures the season that was

From its first sighting the 2003 New Zealand Cricket Almanack makes an impact. Its seriously more formal big sister, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, may have been the subject of much comment over her cover being changed to include a photograph for the first time, but the shot used on the front of the New Zealand version is perfect.

Surrounded by a black border (what else?), it shows Stephen Fleming celebrating his personal Rubicon of 200 runs in Sri Lanka in May - a summary of his year. The man who struggled to realise his batting potential demonstrated the value of hard work and determination, not only in Sri Lanka, but earlier in South Africa where his one-day innings against the host country was one of the finest feats of the tournament.

Nor is it surprising that Fleming should be named one of the Almanack's two players of the year. It is not the first time he has achieved the unofficial honour - he got it in 1998 - but it has been a long time between drinks for a player who now will hopefully go on to his share of the statistical spoils that his talents have long warranted.

Joining him in the winner's circle is allrounder Jacob Oram, a player whose career, in the words of the editors, Francis Payne and Ian Smith, "did a complete u-turn over the last season". And those players who impressed as promising were: Tim McIntosh, Iain O'Brien and Jesse Ryder.

But the extent to which it was Fleming's season is borne out in the Happenings section of the Almanack which has become a fascinating repository of statistical events that might not normally be part of such a publication. However, the editors have it down to a fine art and there is little doubt that this is one of the most intriguing parts of this annual delight.

The uniqueness of events, such as both Canterbury and Central Districts losing matches after posting more than 500 runs in their first innings, the first time this had happened in New Zealand, and Gareth Hopkins becoming the first wicketkeeper from New Zealand to score a century in each innings, are but just two events to have caught the editors' eyes.

Of course, Peter Fulton's triple century for Canterbury against Auckland at Hagley Oval also comes in for the treatment. The first scored by a player without Otago links, it was notable for the fact that it was only the fifth time a player scoring a triple century had been on the losing side in the world. One of the other four, by Roger Blunt in Christchurch in 1931-32, was also by a New Zealander.

Typically, the score, which supplanted the first century in all New Zealand domestic cricket by George Watson in 1881 as the highest on Hagley Oval, unleashed more information of fascination, this time in the brief life of Watson. He died of peritonitis three years later.

It was also fascinating to read of the death of Bernie Clark, Otago's oldest cricketer at the time of his death, and of his connection with the early years of the game in New Zealand and, more importantly, to learn of the priceless history he had lovingly kept from his father's collection of memorabilia. Clark's father was Jim Baker, who played for Otago and New Zealand around the turn of the 20th Century. His collection included a previously unsighted photograph of the New Zealand team of 1899-1900, who played a solitary match against the Melbourne Cricket Club, a side that had been selected by Baker. This fact, which had eluded historians, was recorded on the back of the photograph. The photograph is included among those in the Almanack this year.

The Almanack is clearly the most pre-eminent record of a sport published in New Zealand and as a book of figures in the community overall, its only serious challenger must surely be the Government Yearbook. And it just keeps coming better, year after year.