The 44th edition of The Cricketers’ Who’s Who tells you all you need to know about every player from all 18 counties and includes an expanded women’s section to take in the growing number of professional female cricketers as well as the England Women squad.

In an early preface he thanked a “Mr Bill Smith FRPS” for personally taking nearly all the photographs.

Smith has succeeded on all surfaces, and will be remembered as one of the greatest batters of the 21st century when he retires. Not being part of England’s white-ball teams could be used against Root here, though that is more about the quality of England’s batting options than his talents in the shorter formats. To use a traditional, and somewhat simplistic, measure of an all-rounder, Shakib’s batting average is higher than his bowling average in Tests, ODIs and T20s.

Then again, Alastair Cook does mention in the 2013 foreword that CWW has been a key source for Graeme Swann’s sledges and dressing room “bants” over the years, so maybe it does have some things to answer for. In 2022, the Christchurch-born all-rounder took over the Test captaincy and transformed England from one of the world’s worst teams to an unstoppable force, reinventing the way the world thinks about the five-day game in the process. Those early volumes contain things that the modern world, cricketing or otherwise, would blanch at now. The headlines are two World Cup triumphs and the barely believable heroics at Headingley in 2019, but beyond those historic occasions, Stokes has so regularly turned matches for his team.Khan’s red-ball career has also set off at an impressive pace with Afghanistan recently earning Test status. If you are logging in for the first time since 1st October 2022, you will need to create a new account. Over the next 26 pages we preview the new season, analysing how the 18 counties are shaping up, speaking to a quartet of skippers about the challenges they face, picking out a handful of emerging talents, and profiling two clubs with big ambitions.

Detailed career statistics are included for each player, plus there is a round-up of the 2022 season, including tables, averages and MVPs. Wisden also reports on England’s triumph at the T20 World Cup, to go alongside their 2019 ODI success, and on their Test team’s thrilling rejuvenation under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes. Wisden 2023 is the 160th edition of the most famous sports book in the world – published every year since 1964. Or we’d open it just to see who’s had the dodgiest haircut or to read out some of the amusing comments.View image in fullscreen Middlesex’s Tim Murtagh, who lists his guilty pleasure as ‘bubble baths’ in this year’s Cricketers’ Who’s Who, has also written the foreword.