The third winner of the Don Ambrose Memorial Prize, for the best article published in The Cricket Statistician in 2013, was Keith Warsop, for his article ‘The New Cricket Club and MCC’ in the Spring Journal. In Keith’s absence, the award was accepted on his behalf by Peter Wynne-Thomas.
The aim of the Journal is to encourage a wide variety of writing on all aspects of history and statistics, from the earliest days to the modern age, so selecting an article for the Don Ambrose Prize is very like comparing apples and oranges.
Not every article can find something so crucial as Keith’s evidence for the morphing of the ‘New Cricket Club’ of 1784 into MCC. It may not mean much to followers of the IPL or the World Twenty20, but it does settle a long-running argument, where most of our articles seem more likely to start one.
Giving this year’s prize to Keith emphasises the importance we would like to place on original research and putting things together intelligently.