Cricket
For many people, including me, cricket isn't just a sport, it is a way of life. With the exception of (late lamented) Channel 4, however, it is very poor at attracting and welcoming new spectators to the game. For many years there was nothing except a rather unhelpful tea towel to explain the rules of cricket to newcomers. It was this that prompted me to write 'What Is A Googly?' in 1992. I still occasionally bump into people who say, "It was your book that finally got my wife/son/friend to like this game".
Although cricket has always thrived on statistics, until the 1980s there was no reliable method of comparing current players across the different countries. In 1987, Ted Dexter, Gordon Vince and I developed a system for rating international cricketers. At first this system was greeted with scepticism and even hostility by many cricket lovers, but as it has gained credibility it has been increasingly adopted by the cricket media worldwide. Some international players even use it to help negotiate their contracts. Known originally as the Deloittes Ratings and in later years as the PwC Ratings, the system was officially adopted by the International Cricket Council in January 2005.
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