by Sumit Gangopadhyay

John Nyren was born on Dec 15, 1764 in Hambledon.

Son of the famed Richard Nyren, captain during Hambldeon’s golden age, he is supposed to have plated 16 first-class matches between 1787 to 1817. However, his renown is not as a cricketer. He became legendary as the author of The Cricketers of My Time. It is one of the major sources of cricket history during the Georgian times.

However, there are controversies about the book. (Translator’s note - Apart from some unverified and probably apocryphal anecdotes, this book probably started the long and everlasting tradition of plagiarism that infests the domain of cricket writing. He extravagantly copied verbatim from some of the other cricket writing of his times)

John Nyren represented Gentlemen in the first ever Gentlemen-Players match at Lord’s (Dorset Square) in 1806.

Translated from Bengali by Arunabha Sengupta