Google Doodle celebrates cricketing legend John Wisden's 187th birthday

Cricket fans are in for a little treat. Google is celebrating the birthday of John Wisden, the creator of “the Bible of Cricket” with a doodle on the occasion of the cricketing legend’s 187th birthday today.

The doodle does away with the riff-raff and animation to celebrate Wisden’s birthday in a simple style. With a colour scheme of red upon yellow, the “L” of “Google” in the doodle is replaced by an illustration of a cricket pitch with Wisden in a batting stance. The design and colours of the doodle will seem fairly familiar to cricket fans since it greatly resembles the design of Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, a reference book pioneered by Wisden himself.

Celebrating the Little Wonder

Wisden also known as “The Little Wonder”, was born in 1826 in Sussex, England. He made his debut for the county at the age of 18 and was known to be one of the best all-rounders of his days. Wisden even managed to take six wickets against the MCC on his debut.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

The Little Wonder went on to play 187 first-class cricket matches for Kent, Middlesex and Sussex in his career. After he retired from the game, Wisden founded the Widen Cricketers’ Almanack, considered by most to be the Bible of Cricket. New volumes of the book are published each year without fail, with the issue for this year being the 150th edition.

Google has been known to push much-forgotten or rarely spoken about personalities in its celebratory doodle. It isn’t surprising then, that Google decided to honour John Wisden over celebrating Teacher’s Day or even its own 15th birthday today.