There was a time long ago when the Almanack, and particularly the Notes from the Editor that prefaced it, was conservative in character, tone and outlook. It sneered at one-day cricket when it was first introduced, as well the beery, shirtless fans it attracted. It failed to recognise the moral menace of apartheid South Africa, describing the Basil d’Oliveira affair as a “petty squabble” and condemning planned anti-apartheid demonstrations as “mob violence”. A concerted process of reinvention in the 1990s and 2000s has seen it ripen and enlighten in equal measure. But for those who do not read it – which one suspects includes a decent proportion of the people who buy it – Wisden’s reputation for innate conservatism clings to it still.