ABSTRACT
In 1987 the Marylebone Cricket Club celebrated its bicentenary and to mark the occasion the ex-Glamorgan and England captain Tony Lewis published an official history of the club in a glossy table-top edition. On the back of the dust-jacket, underneath a slightly abstract painting of the famous weathervane Old Father Time taking the bails off the stumps, in bold black print is the simple motif ‘THE STORY OF THE MCC IS THE HISTORY OF CRICKET’. This is hyperbolic, and is akin to saying that the story of the English monarchy is the history of its people. Lewis’ book is establishment history; it is cricket history from the top with the MCC as the elite.
