All too mellow yellow

My postman knocked twice but left the 2009 Wisden on the doorstep. Was it a symbolic gesture; has the daffodil yellow tome become too much of a burden?

I have wondered repeatedly in the last few years how long it can last. This summary of the past, necessarily out of date by the time the postman fails to deliver, costs £45 which will bring you a decent meal with a bottle of wine in many restaurants at a time when paperbacks sell regularly for two packets of fish and chips.

There are more Wisden discounts than Monty Panesar appeals but in this era of Sky Sports, CricInfo and all the other modern gizmos, is there room for an annual however beautifully produced?

Besides, even the first reading suggests it is written, in the main, by old men for the even older. So I was glad to see that Dean Wilson, a young black writer on the Daily Mirror, has been given a spot although his subject - the demise of British Caribbean cricketers - fitted him all too neatly.

Much of the rest of this hefty book reminds us of the truism, from a man who sometimes proves that the loudest vopice in the dressing room is not necessarily the most foolish, that "there are no young people in cricket."

Still as the editors of Wisden sharpen their quills for a new edition they must wonder how long the old codgers will be able to fork out half a pensioner's weekly allowance for a book whose time has surely come.