Story of Cricket

At Old Trafford in 1956 Jim Laker produced one of the most famous individual performances ever in a Test Match, and one which will surely never be repeated. It was hardly surprising then, following that 19 for 90 in the Ashes deciding fourth Test, that publishers rushed to sign up the man who had enthralled the nation, and it was Frederick Muller Limited who secured the rights to publish Laker's autobiography. In the 1950's Mullers were one of the leading publishers in that field also, at various times, publishing books in the names of Colin Cowdrey, Trevor Bailey, Tom Graveney and Bill Edrich. Today there is no trace of the company's imprint, although its lineage can be traced through to current publishers Random House.

In time Laker was to become a respected commentator and author in his own right but his three early books for Muller were ghost written. One, "Over to me", that was published in 1960, was to cause a considerable furore, but the books were, generally, no more satisfying than similar books which appear today. The first book to appear bearing Laker's name appeared in early 1957 and was entitled 'Spinning Round the World'. There is nothing remarkable about the content of the book and there are no compelling reasons for anyone to seek out a copy today, however there is one fascinating chapter, the final one, where Laker looks forward in order to speculate as to what cricket in the year 2000, forty three years on, might be like.

The purpose of this article is to have a look at Laker's approach in order to see just how accurate or otherwise his predictions were and then for the writer to try and project the game forward again, this time, less ambitiously, to 21 years hence.

To understand Laker's vision of the future it is necessary to know a little about the man himself and, more importantly, something of the state of the game when he made his predictions. Although Laker played his county cricket for Surrey, he was a gritty Yorkshireman. After