David Leggat: Almanack has all happenings, quirky stats you need to know

Cricket veteran Rob Nicol in 2012. Photo / File

Every summer there's a clue which alerts you that the cricket season is almost upon us.

It lands with a thud on the desk, soft cover but weighty. Reassuringly thick. Packed with minutiae of the last year.

This time the cover has Neil Wagner charging into the bowling crease, one foot poised in mid air, his face all determination as he prepares to deliver another short, fast flier (okay we don't know that this delivery landed around halfway down the pitch, but given his modus operandi it's a decent chance).

Yes folks, it's the 2017 New Zealand Cricket Almanack, edited by those cricket statisticians of considerable renown, Francis Payne and Ian Smith, who seem to have been doing it for ever.

In one sense, it's a throwback to an easier, less hurried time, given the rapid changes in the world where the insistence is on knowing what happened NOW, and where there are other means of finding out historic details more swiftly.

So there's no need for this publication any more?

Wrong.

For a start, despite what some blithely seem to assume, not everyone flashes fingers across a keyboard at a bewildering speed to seek information. For those, this is just the ticket.

The Happenings section is full of fascinating tidbits.

Did you know there are now 23 New Zealand cricketers of first-class standing born before 1930 and still alive? (The almanack lists 24, but the celebrated fast bowler Tom Pritchard has since passed away, one drawback of doing lists). The most illustrious, by a mile, is former captain and champion allrounder John R. Reid.

And did you know there are only two players, Central Districts' Will Young and veteran Rob Nicol - then of Auckland, now in Otago - who captained their provinces in every game of all three domestic competitions last summer, with 30 and 27 matches respectively? Didn't think so. Northern Districts used five.

The Happenings also record that Martin Guptill is now the only international batsman to have three scores over 180 in ODI cricket. At the time he achieved No3, at Seddon Park in Hamilton against South Africa last summer, that statistic didn't get an airing. Three batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, Viv Richards and Rohit Sharma have two each. That's a seriously good stat unearthed by Payne and Smith.

Or try this: Glenn Phillips became the first New Zealand player to score a century in all three forms of the game in the same season. Nuggets everywhere.

Neil Wagner and Kane Williamson, to no surprise, won the Winsor and Redpath Cups respectively as the country's best bowler and batsman respectively.

Young players of the year? Wellington's Tom Blundell, Northern Districts' Tim Seifert and Auckland's Phillips. Funny thing this: all three are wicketkeepers who bat either strongly or at least capably.

This is a publication which is highly thumbable; that is it's a dip in and dip out book. It also relates well to a pace of life which is measured rather than rushed.

It's not everyone's preference but then again few things in life are. Those who enjoy their annual reflection on the recent past are again well served.