Ranjitsinhji's 'Jubilee Book of Cricket' — The First Modern Cricket Manual, 1897

Cricket coaching books before 1897 — including Beldham, Felix and Lillywhite — had been short, illustrated only with line drawings, and aimed at clubs. The Blackwood commission for Ranji was on a different scale: a hardback omnibus that would teach the game to amateurs and serve as a cultural artefact in its own right.

Negotiations between Blackwood and Ranji ran through the 1895-96 winter; the contract was signed in early 1896. Photographic plates were commissioned through 1896-97 at Hove, Lord's and Cambridge. Fry began drafting in late 1896.

Ranjitsinhji's manuscript for the Jubilee Book began as an extended commercial commission from the Edinburgh publishers William Blackwood and Sons in late 1895. The actual writing was done collaboratively with C.B. Fry, who had already begun to make a parallel name as a cricket journalist; Ranji supplied the technical content and Fry the prose. The publication was timed for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee (June 1897); permission to dedicate the book to the Queen had been granted through Lord Harris.

The finished volume ran to 474 pages with 115 photographic plates. It included extended technical chapters on batting, bowling, fielding and wicket-keeping; historical chapters by Lord Harris and Andrew Lang; and a celebrated chapter on the leg-glance, the off-side stroke that Ranji had brought into Test cricket the year before. The book was the first sports manual to use posed action photography systematically — a model later copied by every cricket coaching guide.

It sold prodigiously. The first edition was followed by reprints in 1898, 1900 and 1912; second-hand copies still appear in the £400-£800 range at auction. As a coaching text it remained the standard until Sir Don Bradman's How to Play Cricket in 1934. As a piece of Indian-English cultural history it is the foundation document of Indian cricket writing.

“When you have got a bat in your hands, you should think only of what you intend to do with it.”

“The leg-glance is not a fluky stroke. It can be taught and it can be learned.”

Ranji's commercial endorsements multiplied; he became the first cricketer to be paid for product photography in advertising (Pears soap, 1898). Fry's career as a cricket writer was launched on the credit of the Jubilee Book; his own collaborations would extend into 1939. The book itself became a collector's item; Sotheby's first edition copies have changed hands at over £1,000.