Dick Brittenden

Richard Trevor Brittenden MBE (22 August 1919 – 10 June 2002) was from the 1950s to the 1980s New Zealand's most prominent cricket writer.

Brittenden was educated at Christchurch Boys High School, and served in the RNZAF in the Second World War in Britain and the Bahamas. He joined the Christchurch Press in 1938 and became its sports editor in 1955, staying in that position until he retired in 1984.

He reported on New Zealand's tour of South Africa in 1953-54, and wrote his first book about the tour, Silver Fern on the Veld (1954). Great Days in New Zealand Cricket followed in 1958: 26 chapters, each one describing a significant match in New Zealand cricket history. Fittingly, the longest chapter is the last one, on New Zealand's first, and at that stage only, Test victory, in Auckland in 1956.

In 1961 he wrote New Zealand Cricketers, 50 chapters, each one on a prominent New Zealand player, past or present. An extra chapter at the beginning is about Lord Cobham, New Zealand's cricket-playing Governor-General, who had just played his last first-class game at the age of 51, while a postscript is dedicated to "the below average cricketer", the dedicated but ungifted club player: "Without him, the game would not survive, because it would be meaningless." Having attended first-class cricket matches in New Zealand since 1928, Brittenden had watched and in most cases known personally all 50 subjects, except for the Wellington batsman J.S. Hiddleston (1890-1940), "and I have found many cricketers of mature years eager and willing to talk about him".

He covered the tour to England, India and Pakistan in 1965 (Red Leather, Silver Fern) and the West Indies tour to New Zealand in 1968-69 and subsequent New Zealand tour to England, India and Pakistan in 1969-70 (Scoreboard '69).

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