2003 was a big year for cricket and for "Wisden". Cricket saw the Cricket World Cup, won by an Australian team considered to be amongst the greatest of all time, plus two Test series that "might stand comparison with any in history." Similarly, "Wisden" editor Matthew Engel made some big changes to the Almanac, for fear of it expanding beyond 2000 pages.

Of course, I was just happy that my favourite sections of "Wisden" were not touched. I always head to the back of each "Wisden" first, to look at the Index of Unusual Occurrences, and found that happily 2003 didn't skimp on the unusualness; from fine leg arriving by parachute to an umpire getting locked in a ground overnight to monks attempting to storm a Test match, 2003 had it all.

Then one jumps to the Obituaries section, where one is reminded that amongst the great and the good to have died in 2003 were Ernie Toshack, Doug Ring, Ram Ramchand and the fathers of Test players John Wright and craig Wishart.

I then tend to jump around "Wisden", finding humour and serious cricket thoughts in abundance. Then one looks forward to the next year's edition. ( )