The Nightwatchman

About The Nightwatchman

In cricket, the nightwatchman is the lower-order batsman sent out in the gathering gloom to protect a specialist from the hostile final overs of the day — a figure of quiet defiance, surviving against the odds. It is a fitting name for the quarterly journal that Wisden launched in March 2013: The Nightwatchman, subtitled "The Wisden Cricket Quarterly," a collection of essays and long-form articles that gave cricket writers what they rarely get — free rein over subject matter and length, escape from next-day deadlines, and the space to write beautifully and at length about the game and its myriad offshoots.

Published in London by John Wisden & Co, The Nightwatchman brings together authors, poets, journalists, players, musicians, broadcasters and historians from around the world, writing about every corner of cricket — from Test matches to village greens, from the game's history to its intersections with music, literature and mathematics. Contributors have included some of the finest cricket writers of the modern era alongside well-known figures from other disciplines. Below is a detailed profile of the journal: its launch, its editors, its contributors, its special issues, and its place in the tradition of cricket writing.

History and Launch

The Nightwatchman debuted in March 2013, published by John Wisden & Co of London. The concept was simple and, in the modern media landscape, radical: a quarterly journal of long-form cricket writing, available in print and ebook formats, in which contributors would be given complete freedom over what they wrote about and how long they took to say it. As the journal's own description put it, cricket's past had been enriched by great writing, and Wisden was making sure its future would be too.

The launch came at a moment when cricket writing was thriving online but starved of space: daily journalism demanded brevity, and books demanded years. The quarterly format offered a middle way — essays long enough to develop an argument or tell a story properly, published often enough to feel current. The first issue, published in spring 2013, set the template: an eclectic mix of pieces by writers from around the cricketing world, presented as a handsome print volume and a digital edition.

The journal has continued quarterly publication ever since, building a run of dozens of issues — by the mid-2020s the numbering had reached the high forties — and establishing itself as the premier venue for long-form cricket writing in English.

The Wisden Heritage

The Nightwatchman carries the name of the most famous institution in cricket publishing. The Wisden Cricketers' Almanack — often called the "Bible of cricket" — is an annual publication founded in 1864 by John Wisden, the Sussex and England cricketer known as "the Little Wonder." Wisden, who had taken all ten wickets in an innings — all bowled — in a North v South match at Lord's in 1850, sold sports equipment from his London shop before branching out into publishing, producing the inaugural Almanack in 1864.

The Almanack has been published every year since, through two world wars, and is widely regarded as the most authoritative record of the game in the world — arguably the most famous and respected sports publication in existence. Its features include the Five Cricketers of the Year, a tradition since 1889 that forms the game's hall of fame, and the Leading Cricketer in the World, named for the previous calendar year since 2004. The influential Notes by the Editor have been the game's annual sermon for over a century. The Nightwatchman is the Almanack's literary sibling: where the Almanack records the game, the quarterly reflects on it.

Editors

The journal was co-edited in its early years by Osman Samiuddin and Tanya Aldred, with Matt Thacker as managing editor. Samiuddin, the distinguished Pakistani cricket writer, and Aldred, the respected English cricket journalist, set the journal's tone: internationalist, literary, and open to every aspect of the game. Thacker, who has remained central to the journal throughout its life, has overseen its production and edited many of its issues.

In later years the co-editors were Anjali Doshi and Tanya Aldred, again with Matt Thacker as managing editor — a continuity of editorial leadership that has kept the journal's character consistent across more than a decade of publication. The editors' approach has been hands-off in the best sense: choosing writers they trust, giving them their head, and assembling the results into issues of remarkable variety.

Contributors

The roll of Nightwatchman contributors reads like a who's who of modern cricket writing — and of the wider cultural figures the game attracts. Contributors to date have included Gideon Haigh, the great Australian cricket historian; Patrick Neate, the novelist; John Crace, the political sketch writer and cricket obsessive; Aakash Chopra, the former India opener turned broadcaster; Jonathan Wilson, the football writer; Andy Zaltzman, the comedian and statistician; Tom Holland, the historian; Isa Guha, the former England bowler and broadcaster; Matthew Engel, the former editor of the Almanack; Ed Smith, the former England batsman and national selector; Martin Crowe, the late New Zealand great; Mike Marqusee, the writer and activist; Tony Cozier, the voice of West Indian cricket; Jonathan Liew, the sportswriter; Alison Mitchell, the broadcaster; Sir John Major, the former prime minister and noted cricket lover; Lawrence Booth, the Almanack's editor; Peter Oborne, the political journalist; Dan Norcross, the broadcaster; Jonathan Agnew, the BBC's voice of cricket; Mike Selvey, the former England bowler and Guardian correspondent; Neil Hannon, the Divine Comedy frontman; Simon Barnes, the sportswriter; and Michael Holding, the West Indian fast-bowling legend.

The presence of writers from music, poetry, literature, history and mathematics alongside the cricket specialists is deliberate: each issue is conceived as an eclectic selection, and some of the journal's most memorable pieces have come from outside the game's professional commentariat.

What the Journal Publishes

Each issue of The Nightwatchman is a collection of original long-form pieces — essays, reportage, memoir, criticism and fiction-adjacent writing — on cricket and its offshoots. Subjects have ranged across the whole of the game: Test cricket and the county championship, the Indian Premier League and the village green, the game's colonial history and its modern economics, its literature and its language.

Typical issues illustrate the range. An early issue featured Anjali Doshi reflecting on India's conflicted relationship with Lord's, James Holland reassessing the life and times of Keith Miller, Jonathan Liew on the symbiosis of St John's Wood and its cricket club, Richard Evans revisiting a controversial selection meeting, Steve Neal on Albert Trott — the only man known to have cleared the Lord's Pavilion — and John Crace explaining why Lord's and MCC bring out the worst in him. A tenth-anniversary-era issue included Rob Smyth on the cameo that won the 2005 Ashes, Patrick Collins on terrestrial television's last hurrah, Sean Ingle on the Test Match board game, Huw Richards remembering Mike Marqusee, Dilip D'Souza on the Ranji Trophy, and Felix White on distance and clarity.

The through-line is quality of writing: pieces are commissioned to be read slowly, with an armchair and a clear afternoon, not skimmed between overs.

Special Issues and Compilations

Alongside the regular quarterly issues, The Nightwatchman has published special editions devoted to particular themes. These have included issues on club cricket and on Roses cricket — the historic rivalry between Lancashire and Yorkshire — as well as a "Best of the First 5 Years" compilation gathering the finest writing from the journal's opening half-decade. The specials allow the journal to go deep on subjects that deserve book-length treatment while keeping the quarterly's rhythm intact.

The compilations have also served as an entry point for new readers, collecting the most celebrated pieces for those who discovered the journal late. For collectors, the back catalogue — stretching from the March 2013 debut through nearly fifty issues — represents a decade-spanning anthology of the best cricket writing of the era.

Format and Availability

The Nightwatchman is available in print and ebook formats. Readers can subscribe to the print version — receiving a free digital copy for travelling light — take out a digital-only subscription, or buy single issues in print, digital or both. The journal's website at thenightwatchman.net carries subscription and single-issue options, along with sample editions giving prospective readers a taste of the journal's contents.

The dual-format approach reflects the journal's readership: traditionalists who want the physical volume for the bookshelf, and modern readers happy to carry a decade of quarterly issues on an e-reader. Either way, the experience the journal promises is the same — a pause button, as one reviewer put it, where all that matters is a comfortable chair and a choice of topics from Test match to village green.

Reception and Place in Cricket Writing

The Nightwatchman has been widely praised as one of the finest things in modern cricket publishing. Reviewers have called it a curated literary gem, a window into the minds of cricket writers from across the world, and a luxury in an age of disposable sports content. For seven years and over a million and a half words, one reviewer noted, Wisden had been publishing a quite brilliant quarterly collection of essays on every corner of the game.

The journal's significance lies in what it preserves: the tradition of cricket as a literary game. From Cardus to Arlott to the present day, cricket has inspired better writing than any other sport, and The Nightwatchman is the contemporary custodian of that tradition — the venue where the game's writers are given the space to do their best work. In that sense it honours both halves of its inheritance: the nightwatchman's defiant survival, and Wisden's century-and-a-half as the game's faithful chronicler.

To explore the journal's issues and subscriptions, visit the official website at thenightwatchman.net.