IT MIGHT be a little implausible to claim that cricket’s social conscience is held solely between the covers of this annual tome but that it has one is evident from even a brief browse through Wisden’s pages.

This becomes even more pertinent in an age in which football is not only king, but emperor. Cricket not only struggles to compete for column inches with the “beautiful game,” but what it represents is often lost in a traditional media outlet struggling to cope in the digital age. Philip Collins notes that cricket coverage in the newspapers is now “being driven into avenues populated only by the cognoscenti.”

Yet there remains so much of it being played. Wisden reports this year, for example, on 55 England matches, contested on 112 days.

The sport, it seems, remains ever-popular. Australia’s Twenty20 tournament the Big Bash, for instance, has moved into ninth place on the list of the world’s most-watched sporting leagues, not far behind Spanish football’s La Liga.

Behind this, though, lurks the fear for the longer form. This is becoming a regular theme, though justified through continued dwindling Test crowds.

“The West Indies have never possessed a batsman quite like Shivnarine Chanderpaul,” laments Tony Cozier. The influence of T20, especially on the West Indies, means they almost certainly never will again.

There is a real fear of other cricketers taking a lead from the West Indies and prioritising the shortest formats. The problem for Collins is “all of it is loud and none of it is memorable.”

Robert Winder writes of the only two surviving first-class cricketers who played before the second world war. The amateur John Manners came from a “family of empire builders.”

He recalled how at Hampshire, a bowler called Creese would rub the ball in dirt when he came on to bowl.

Leo Harrison also played for Hants, but as a professional had to make way for amateur players during high season.

A review of David Lloyd’s autobiography notes his childhood among the terraced housing, outside lavatories, extended family and stumps chalked on the walls. It is a reminder that cricket is a diverse creature and is certainly not the preserve of an Establishment or elite.

Still in the shadow of the tragic departure of Phillip Hughes, a scholarly piece seeks to unearth a more accurate extent of mortality in cricket. Between 1850 and 1950 there were at least 358 cricket-related deaths in Britain and Ireland — 18 of these in the period 1933-35, of which eight were blows to the heart — a chilling postscript to bodyline bowling.

Yet it was Frank Tyson’s hospitalising of Bill Edrich in 1954 that made him a favourite of England captain Len Hutton.

These historical insights allow for an examination of how things have changed both in a sporting context and in its social setting. They are pertinent because past concerns often reappear.

When challenged about the seizure of power by the big three (England, Australia and India) in 2014, England’s Giles Clarke accused his questioner’s concerns of being “straight out of Wisden 1909.”

This morsel comes from the film Death of a Gentleman, which examined maladministration and set out to expose “one of the biggest scandals in sport.” It accused cricket’s administrators of being greedy and amateur and noted that too much money inevitably leads to corruption.

Last year’s Wisden focused on the so-called power grab by cricket’s three wealthiest boards. Remarkably, the individuals responsible for renegotiating world cricket in the interests of a wealthy elite have all left their positions.

For the almanack’s editor, “cricket breathed a little more freely.”

Shashank Manohar, the new head of the powerful Indian board (BCCI) even openly regretted “the three major countries bullying the ICC” (International Cricket Council).

In an article marking 20 years of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), Simon Briggs describes Giles Clarke, who assumed leadership in 2007, as “a character who could have been created by Dickens, with his penchant for outlandish suits and a habit of dismissing challengers with a sneer.”

Simon Heffer was even less flattering in the Daily Telegraph, saying he displayed the “utter lack of self-awareness one normally associates with the unpleasantly stupid.”

The ECB may well point to a model in that they have an annual turnover of £150 million — five times the amount in 1997. But there remain obvious concerns about the direction of the sport.

Andrew Miller notes a further decline of those playing club cricket and unearths a figure of 5 per cent of matches that were conceded because one side couldn’t raise a team.

British Asians make up some 40 per cent of those recreational cricketers. Yet there remain concerns about their path to the sport’s highest levels. County cricket’s bias remains to the 6 per cent of the population who are privately educated.

There is the fear that Asian cricket could follow its Caribbean counterpart. “It is only a matter of time before we get the first British-born Asian football star,” notes Gulfraz Riaz, the driving force behind the Asian Cricket Council. Will restaurant workers and taxi drivers chose an expensive and time-consuming sport like cricket over the richer offers from football? “It will be a no-brainer,” Riaz asserts.

The late Richie Benaud appears in numerous pages throughout the volume. Four books have followed his passing. “Not bad,” remarks Gideon Haigh, “for someone who had played his last cricket more than half a century earlier.”

Benaud’s contribution, of course, went beyond what he did on the field of play. Lawrence Booth recalls how he “balanced out the tactic of talking more and more about less and less until everything has been said about nothing.”

Talking of Sky, we are again reminded of television audiences being a fraction of what they were on terrestrial television. “£65m is not to be sniffed at,” argued Collins. “But an audience has been lost.”

And we come full circle: an influx of money for a declining audience, or at least one that is being raised on the 20-overs form.

The 1909 Wisden, by the way, was largely concerned with proposals for a Triangular Tournament featuring Australia, England and South Africa — the sport’s richest rather than best sides.

Cricket will continue to develop in an unsure world in which finance appears to overcome all other concerns. Its progress will continue to be checked and balanced by this wonderful publication, that will again ensure that a social conscience remains part of the sport’s allure.