Woolmer in Wisden

The appalling crime in Jamaica still has the cricket world in shock, and it was harrowingly eerie this week to be coldly attempting to relish Wisden’s latest arrival, hot off the press. In it, of course, Bob Woolmer features prominently. The new almanack includes a poignant full-page close-up picture of a desperate Bob brandishing (in vain) The Laws of Cricket on the Oval balcony on that cataclysmic afternoon last August. For cricket’s own official version of how the laws of life were so greviously smithereened this March, as well as the game’s intimate farewell hosannas to trailblazer Woolmer, we shall have to wait the 12 months till Wisden 2008.

Last year’s Wisden extravagantly went to town — indeed, over the top and a few times round Trafalgar Square — as it delved into every nook and cranny of England’s happy and glorious 2005 Ashes victory. The book caught the mood and record sales topped 50,000 copies.