Catching the winds of change

The year gone by was one of seismic shifts as Twenty20's flashing blades got to work cutting the heart out of Test cricket. It may not be long before books that review the past 12 months become a sought-after vintage, though this may overstate the value of the well organised Cricket Year 2008.

Jonathan Agnew, editor for the 10th time, damns the Stanford Super Series as "controversial and wholly unnecessary", and writes succinct but unremarkable features on, among others, Jimmy Anderson's resurgence and Michael Vaughan's falling star. The year ends in early November, having started in October 2007.

Mark Baldwin's chronological and comprehensive round-ups of the domestic competitions are excellent and accompanied by carefully compiled stats (though you might need a magnifying glass to decipher some). There are tidy features on Mushtaq Ahmed, Graeme Hick, Graham Napier's 58-ball 152 not out, the ruinous weather and each of the four domestic competition winners, though Mark Ramprakash's century of centuries goes almost unnoticed.

After Justin Langer has told us why Australia will win the 2009 Ashes, a few pages are dedicated to each of the Test-playing nations. Tony Cozier's analysis of the lucrative West Indian revolution is the highlight: "Everything that happened during the Stanford Super Series week in Antigua represents a good news story for West Indies cricket."

This is a snappy but largely predictable offering and as a glossy compendium it would have been improved by bigger, better and more varied photos. So who might buy it? Durham fans desperate for any and every piece of literature documenting their Championship-winning season? Or perhaps Allen Stanford, who had as much to do with cricket in 2008 as anyone and has probably never heard of Wisden?

Jonathan Agnew's Cricket Year 2008
by Jonathan Agnew
A&C Black £24.99