Meet cricket detective -- Robin Isherwood

By Glyn Williams

THE oldest living Border cricketer might be Capel Southey Baines, who is coming up to his 91st birthday. On the other hand, there might be someone else -- a cricket detective's work is never done.

Robin Isherwood, who is contestably the world's best statistical expert on Border cricket -- and perhaps on South African cricket -- lives in Bolton, Lancashire, which is in itself a bizarre fact perhaps to be included in a book of cricket oddities. It should surely be expected that the best informed SA cricket fundi would live in this country.

Isherwood and Philip Bailey have just compiled the booklet, Border Cricketers 1897/98-1997/98, which is bang up to date and at the same time old hat, at least in part. Cricketers come and go and new facts constantly emerge, which makes the job both never-ending and akin to detective work, carried out with the aid of correspondents all over the world.

For instance, Isherwood told me after publication of the Border booklet: "K.I. Hay is alive and well and living in Plettenberg Bay -- just had an e-mail from his daughter."

The booklet states that Kenneth Ian Hay was born at Queenstown in 1927, which has produced many fine cricketers for Border and South Africa (and England).

Isherwood, a member of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS), says he is responsible for all the statistics, biographical details, page headings, introduction and notes which appear not only in the Border publication, but also in similar booklets for Natal, Transvaal and Western Province.

And when things go wrong, as they do in any human endeavour, he is the perennial perfectionist who goes to considerable extra trouble to try to put matters right.

When the Border booklet was published without a planned explanatory map, he ensured one was placed as an insert.

He says Bailey gives him facts on cricketers who are related (apart from details of fathers, sons and brothers, done by Isherwood) as well as tours undertaken and other teams played for, which he checks with his own records.

The South African booklets stem indirectly from his SA Register of first-class cricketers and his career record analysis covering every player from 1888-89 to date. He has just sent to Border cricket administrator Diane Sime an updated analysis of the career records of all the province's players.

Extraordinarily in this age of professionalism, Isherwood and his like are among the last of the amateurs. He works extremely hard merely for the love of the game and the people who take part in it.

"Bailey and I get no money for compiling the booklet," he said. "I am out of pocket at the end of the day. We do it for the love of cricket and for the thrill of seeing the facts published for the benefit of others. I get as many booklets as I wish from ACS (usually about 25, but I needed over 35 for the Border booklet) to send to various people who have helped me.

"I pay for the postage and envelopes so I suppose I am £40 out of pocket. I also get at my own expense birth and death certificates from the SA High Commission at £5 a copy. These have provided many new or amended details."

Isherwood is particularly anxious to get information on former Border cricketers EM Birch, HD Bowley, TG Brown, RD Chapman, TL Collins, F Davidson, C Garner, PS Hubbard, JM Kemp, KN Kirton, CD Lownds, R Miller. NF Mitchell, JMG Price, V Roberts, RB Smith, WM Tainton, JM Whitehead, G Whitney and M Wild.

And is W Dick, of whom there is no more than a name, in fact Charles Wallace Dick?

ACS gives all members two free publications a year. It has 1 000 members and the Border booklet is available from ACS for £3. Anyone can join ACS. Membership is not confined to statisticians. The address is: 3 Radcliffe Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham, UK, or on internet: http://www.acs.cricket.org.

* Isherwood says that when an elderly relative recently heard a radio item on South African Test cricketer FW Smith she rang up and offered his international cap to the Wanderers museum in Johannesburg, but the programme presenter said he was too busy to take her name and phone number. Now they cannot trace the woman.