A DEDICATED cricket researcher, Irving Rosenwater was a character of a type which English cricket often produces but does not always value as it should.
He contributed much to the understanding of the game’s history, concentrating on figures and facts. He was enthusiastic and amiable in early years, but his pedantic approach irritated many and cost him much of the recognition that was his due for his substantial contribution to the game — which dominated his life — although there is no record that he ever played.
Sir Donald Bradman — A Biography (1978) was Rosenwater’s outstanding achievement. If short on colour or character study, this first substantial record of the greatest Australian batsman was impressive in its sheer detail, and showed commendable grasp of the Australia in which Bradman grew and flourished. Rosenwater made a rare and honest admission at the time in a letter: “It’s abundantly true that my writing lacks the qualities of Cardus and Robertson-Glasgow . . . but the pens of Cardus or Robertson-Glasgow could never have written such a biography.”
Irving Rosenwater was born of Polish immigrant stock in the East End of London in 1932, and educated at Parmenter’s Grammar School, Bethnal Green.After deferred National Service in the RAMC, when his precision in administration brought him the offer of a permanent commission, he began contributing to domestic and overseas publications on cricket, including The Cricketer, where his first reports appeared in 1955. He also compiled cricket crosswords for the magazine, and was its assistant editor.
For a time he compiled the records section of Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack. In 1961 he was founder-editor of The Journal of the Cricket Society, and a year later wrote a learned introduction, with notes on individual reproductions, for a charming collection, A Portfolio of Cricket Prints — A 19th Century Miscellany. Ralph Barker joined Rosenwater in 1969 to assemble England v Australia, a compendium of Test cricket between the two countries.
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Rosenwater’s search for cricketing truth found an apparently ideal outlet in The Cricket Quarterly (1963-1970), where he contributed to the game’s most erudite periodical, until he fell out with the idiosyncratic founder, Rowland Bowen.
When E. W. Swanton produced his substantial work, The World of Cricket, in 1966, Rosenwater as assistant editor proofread the 600,000 word text — twice.
A meticulous scorer, he succeeded the first BBC television scorer, Roy Webber, for a seven-year stint, but left in 1977 to work for Kerry Packer’s revolutionary World Series Cricket — a surprising venture for one so deeply involved in traditional cricket. His reported fee of A$8,000 was certainly well beyond his BBC earnings.
In later years Rosenwater concentrated on a series of monographs published by the dealer Christopher Saunders. These ranged from 500 Notable Cricket Quotations, and Thomas Verity, Architect of Lord’s Pavilion, to studies of notable collectors and researchers of the past.
He delved into intriguing byways, and at his death was planning a booklet reproducing modern ticket designs for Lord’s matches by the graphic designer Jules Akel, to which he would contribute an introduction.
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He was an active but inevitably controversial member of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, and enjoyed a series of skirmishes with MCC over the years. His collection of archive material was extensive — so much so, that he announced once that he needed two houses; one for himself, and one for his books. He lived a spartan life otherwise, and did not own a car or a television.
Unmarried, Rosenwater is survived by a sister.
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Irving Rosenwater, cricket statistician and author, was born on September 11, 1932. He died on January 30, 2006 aged 73.