David Frith does not derive from any of cricket writing’s conventional streams. He is neither an ex-player pundit and nor a newspaper journalist. He is neither an academic nor a belletrist. He developed no sideline in broadcasting on radio or television. He has reported many matches, but is not known by his match reports; he has ghost written, but is not a ghost writer. He has composed millions of words, yet perhaps his lasting legacy will be his contribution to cricket’s otherwise neglected visual heritage.

He is neither completely English nor Australian, but a compound of both, and in any case his allegiance has always been to cricket – as a magazine editor to cricket’s present, as the author of books to cricket’s past. For the purposes of a disinterested appreciation, it would probably be better to refer to him as ‘Frith’. But having known the man many years - initially through contributing to Wisden Cricket Monthly from 1990 - I feel licensed to refer to him as David. He is a man of adamantine convictions, which has not always made him popular; he courts no approval; he plays to no gallery. Yet I have known him only as a fount of generosity and the epitome of dedication. Certainly he well merits John Woodcock’s verdict: ‘No-one can have steeped himself in cricket more assiduously or with more singular intent than David Frith. Indeed, there is no-one quite like him in the game.’