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The 1947 English cricket season was the first to be reviewed by ''Playfair Cricket Annual'' which began publication in April 1948. The season is chiefly remembered for the batting performances of Denis Compton and Bill Edrich who established seasonal records that, with the subsequent reduction in the number of first-class matches, will probably never be broken. Their form was key to their team Middlesex winning the County Championship for the first time since 1921, although they were involved in a tight contest for the title with the eventual runners-up Gloucestershire, for whom Tom Goddard was the most outstanding bowler of the season. Compton and Edrich were assisted by the fact that it was the driest and sunniest English summer for a generation, ensuring plenty of good batting wickets. The South Africans toured the British Isles and played a Test series of five matches against England, who won the series 3–0 with two matches drawn, again largely thanks to the batting of Compton and Edrich. ==Background== The main sources for the 1947 season are the 85th edition of ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'' and the inaugural edition of ''Playfair Cricket Annual'', both published in April 1948. The 1947 season was therefore the first to be reviewed by ''Playfair''. The winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom was harsh with heavy snowfalls disrupting communication and supply for about six weeks from January to March. February was one of the coldest months on record and the winter culminated in the wettest March for 300 years. Yet it was followed by what ''Wisden'' called a "glorious summer" in which fine weather prevailed and "the sun shone throughout". This was in sharp contrast to the wet summer of 1946. Despite austerity and rationing, the country was still in post-war euphoria and there was great enthusiasm for sporting events. As ''Wisden'' reports, "crowds thronged the grounds (and) Lord's was often full for county games".〔''Wisden'', p.82.〕 ''Wisden'' editor Hubert Preston commented in his 1948 editorial that "the season of 1947 bears favourable comparison with any year within living memory". He had expected the continuous fine weather to produce pitch conditions favourable to batsmen and hence the predominance of drawn matches but, as he wrote, "actually about three-quarters of the County Championship matches were won outright".〔 ''Playfair'' editor Peter West wrote that "a grand and glorious summer" had been "a feast amidst austerity indeed, a fine reward for months of waiting through a chill and infamous winter". West went on to claim that "nearly three million people", with the younger generation strongly represented, attended first-class cricket matches in 1947. It must be remembered that this means three million attendances and not literally three million people.〔''Playfair'', p.8.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1947 English cricket season」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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