Behind the scenes at Wisden: 161 years old and still going strong

Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack is in good hands with the current editor, Lawrence Booth, who has now racked up 13 editions. Photograph: Simon Dack/Alamy

The commission came by post, which was unusual even in 1994. We don’t pay very well, it said, but we can offer you “a sliver of immortality”. Only the editor of Wisden could have written that.

The editor was Matthew Engel, whose waspish wit had (unwittingly) lured me into sports writing. Five years earlier, when I was mulling an unexpected offer to switch from arts and features editing to being the cricket writer for the Independent on Sunday, what swung it was rereading an anthology of Matthew’s sparkling spell in the same role at the Guardian. So I jumped at the chance to work with him and spent long hours sweating over the Almanack’s media roundup. Only in Wisden could this appear on page 1,359.