How can all be lost? Wisden has arrived.

One of the great annual treats is upon us: yes, the 2008 edition of Wisden arrived this morning. As always, the obituaries provide some of the best reading. To wit, Mike Brearley’s father, Horace who died last August aged 94. He was:

A batsman who played once for Yorkshire before the war, and twice for Middlesex afterwards…Mike himself tells the story of his father’s only game for Yorkshire, which was against Middlesex: “He batted an No. 5, and faced a side that contained three leg-spinners. Horace had never, or almost never, been confronted by a googly bowler, and here were three all at once. But he was a typical Yorkshireman, and his comment about the occasion was to complain that Len Hutton kept pinching the bowling. One might have though that this would have suited him fine.”