'An eminent industrialist has gone on record as saying for that light bedside reading he prefers abstracts from accounts. For real enjoyment, however, he knows of no substitute for balance sheets. To those who like to drop off with a snatch of Dickens, Johnson, Fleming or Wodehouse this may sound strange, not to say bizarre. But further reflection may awaken a chord of sympathy, at least in the breasts of cricketers.
Doubtless to the tycoon a balance sheet has all the evocative qualities that a score card has to the devotee of Wisden. A hidden asset here is the unexpected century from a hitherto unknown batsman. There, a drop in the glorious uncertainty of the profit and loss account conjures up visions of a dashing take-over bid, perhaps made against the clock. A sizeable reserve against taxation keeps the board well padded up against the googlies and in-dippers of the corporation tax man. Having eagerly digested the whole year's play and approved the averages, the reader passes gently to dreams of audits, AGMs, scrip issues and, appropriately, beautiful flotations.
The drowsy cricketer, swaddled to the chin in eiderdown as the wind drives the hail against his bedroom window, achieves the same soporific Nirvana by thumbing through any issue of Wisden....One could go on all night but it is late. Sleep well. May your balance sheets and Wisden's bring you sweet dreams.'
[Ian Peebles, 'Bedside Statistics' in Ron Roberts (ed.) The Cricketer's Bedside Book (London, 1966)]
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